Little Uzumaki
by Lucillia
Summary: After he and his team have an accident with the Fountain of Youth, the now two year-old Naruto somehow manages to save the day. Melting Gaara's heart with his cuteness and inspiring others to do good and to defeat Orochimaru and the Akatsuki along the way
1. A Disastrous Drink

Kakashi honestly didn't know why he'd decided to take that particular shortcut back to Konoha. If he'd taken another route, any other route, he wouldn't be dealing with the disaster he'd been stuck with. But then again, considering the nature of the Fountain of Youth, there had been no knowing that it would be in their path this time.

He had picked a different route home than the one they had taken to get to Wave, and ran his team at a much faster pace than normal for Genin of their skill level in case someone decided to take exception to the fact that they had defeated one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, namely Momochi Zabuza. There had been a number of extenuating circumstances surrounding the death of the Demon of the Mist, but he knew from experience that by the time word got out, all that anyone would hear was that Team 7 under Hatake Kakashi THE Copy Ninja had killed the rogue swordsman.

Running the Genin faster than he probably should have had been another factor in the disaster that occurred on the way back from the team's first C-Rank which had gone FUBAR on day one and gotten worse from there.

The incident in question had occurred when they had stopped for a short break when he had noticed that all three Genin - including Naruto who was usually a fountain of energy - were rapidly falling behind, too exhausted to continue. The team that had been running full tilt for Konoha had stopped near a clear pool of water, the source of which was flowing from a pile of rocks that stood in the middle of a rather peaceful looking clearing that seemed to be the perfect place to rest for a while before they resumed their harried pace back down the road. Next to this pool of water that looked deliciously cold was an old metal sign that said **CAUTION!: ****PUBERTY! **. A sign that Kakashi had been trained to look out for by his sensei and avoid.

Before Kakashi, who was tired himself as he was still recovering from the battle against the formerly legendary Momochi Zabuza, could react, all three twelve year-olds raced towards the water and started drinking greedily. He managed to pull the kids away after a few seconds, but by the time he had done so, the damage had already been done. All three children started rapidly shrinking before his eyes. When they finally stopped, there three two year-olds where his students had been.

After two long and arduous days he didn't even want to think about, during which he had to constantly send his Ninken out for food since Sakura and Sasuke refused to eat the ration bars that were all he had on him at the moment, clothes, and diapers and/or things that could be used as diapers Kakashi finally arrived at the gates of Konoha with Minato's son riding on his shoulders and Sasuke and Sakura under each arm.

"They should put a better warning sign on the Fountain of Youth. You're the second team in ten years that's happened to. Come to think of it, that pink haired one was on the last team who had a member fall victim to it if I remember correctly." The gatekeeper, who surprisingly enough wasn't Izumo or Kotetsu who seemed to have been given permanent gate-desk duty considering how often they manned the thing, said smirking.

Kakashi sighed as he signed in, dreading the confrontations that were to come. He just knew that Iruka was going to be a pain in the ass about this. The man hadn't let him hear the end of it when Naruto came back from one of his D ranks with a scratch that hadn't healed as fast as the others. Considering that extreme reaction, he just knew that Iruka would go ballistic once he found out that he had "let" Naruto get turned into a two year-old. After entering his team's check-in information, grabbing Sasuke from the sign-in table where he'd set him down so he could write, and getting a better grip on Sakura, he headed to the Hokage tower to make his report.

An hour after he arrived at the tower, while he was still giving his report to the Third Hokage who was cradling a sleeping Naruto while Sakura and Sasuke curled up at his feet, Shimura Danzo arrived.

"I heard that there was an accident with the Fountain of Youth." Danzo said after he hobbled over to stand by Kakashi.

"Yes there was, fortunately I have found appropriate guardians for all of those affected." The Hokage said with a sigh, immediately guessing what Danzo was getting at, since it had been the same thing he'd been trying to get at for the last twelve years.

"You're not entrusting Hatake Kakashi with the Jinchuriki are you?" Danzo said "Considering how well he did as the boy's instructor, I'd have to say that that's a bad idea."

"No, I'm giving him to Umino Iruka. Considering the fact that he's an instructor at the Academy and therefore less likely to be sent on dangerous missions, he would be better equipped to provide a more stable environment for the child." The Hokage replied.

"Why don't you just send him to the orphanage?" Danzo asked, obviously planning something.

"Considering his slightly malnourished condition, which is exactly as it was the last time he was this age, returning him to the orphanage would not be a good idea. Iruka has already agreed to take the child in, and has proven himself to be a reasonable and responsible person, especially when it comes to Naruto, several times over." The Hokage replied.

Danzo turned to leave, acknowledging that the Hokage had won this round. Sarutobi hadn't picked the boy's highly irresponsible Godfather or Minato's damaged pet, so he couldn't lodge a protest on the grounds that the jinchuriki would be ill cared for by people who would put him in danger due to their close ties to his father. Iruka was a responsible adult who was skilled with dealing with children, especially the child who contained the Kyuubi, and was therefore an exceedingly logical choice, a choice he couldn't object to without making it obvious that he was trying to "make another grab for power". There was some good that would come of Naruto being raised by the young Umino though, and that was that there would be little to no chance of the boy turning on his village for being "unloved" as some Jinchuriki have been wont to do.

As he'd headed towards the door, a memory struck him. Well, actually two memories. One of a pink haired toddler curled up at a slightly younger Third Hokage's feet, and another of an identical pink haired toddler running around a much younger Third Hokage playing with a six year old Asuma. Now that he thought about it, there were three memories, as he could vaguely recall being present when a rather familiar looking pink haired woman who was roughly the same age as Sarutobi's students made a report to the Hokage shortly before the start of the Second War.

"Is that Haruno girl cursed or something?" he asked nobody in particular as he left.

After Iruka came to pick up Naruto, glaring daggers at Kakashi as he left with the boy, Kakashi had been ordered to take his remaining two former students to their new homes. Dropping Sasuke off was easy, as he had simply dumped the child and the note from the Hokage into the arms of the first Hyuuga he came across when he'd reached the Hyuuga compound. With Sakura however...He'd gone to the address he'd been given, but when an elderly man answered the door, he was sure he was at the wrong house.

"Haruno Kinmaru?" Kakashi asked. That had been the name given for Sakura's father. Perhaps Sakura's grandfather was visiting.

The old man took one look at the child Kakashi was holding and groaned.

"Dear god, not again. At this rate, we'll never get any grandchildren." The man said.

* * *

Author's Note: I got the idea for the warning sign next to the Fountain of Youth from a quote in a Pirates of The Carribean fanfic where Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Turner, and someone else fall in and turn into kids and one of them says something along the lines of "They should put a warning sign up, Caution Puberty."

**Edited 8-30-12**


	2. Homecoming

Iruka smiled at the antics of the blond two year-old that was racing around his apartment, and curiously poking his nose into everything as he explored his new home. Naruto was so adorable at that age, it was hard not to. He didn't know how anybody could've hated him then or even now for that matter.

He was going to strangle Kakashi the next time he saw him. No, strangling would be too kind. He was going to kill him slowly and painfully, and draw it out for as long as he could. While Naruto was technically alive and running around his apartment, he may as well have been dead. The Naruto that he had taught, the prank pulling, ramen eating, favorite student who had been like a little brother to him was gone forever. In that boy's place was a two year-old who would have to grow naturally to reach the age he had been a week ago.

By the time Naruto was twelve again however, he would be a different child. He would look the same, and probably even act the same sometimes, but he would have been shaped by a completely different set of life experiences. It hurt to look at the child and realize that Naruto was gone and this small skinny child was all that was left of him.

As he watched the small boy race about his apartment, he briefly wondered if he had been too hasty in offering to take the child in. He'd given the Hokage and Naruto his word that he would properly care for the boy though, and he couldn't go back on it. One of the reasons he couldn't go back on his word in this case, as the Hokage had informed him, was that a member of his council of Advisors named Danzo would be waiting for the first opportunity to snatch the child up to use in one of his numerous schemes. If that happened, Naruto's life would be a living hell.

One thing he had vowed to never allow to happen though, was to let Naruto reach the state he had been in when he had first met him. When he'd first met Naruto, the boy had had empty eyes that his bright and often obnoxious smile never quite reached, eyes that had lost almost all hope, and his early pranks had been exceedingly vicious. If he hadn't gotten through to Naruto just as Naruto had gotten through to him that fateful day when Hibachi had sent the boy out into danger, if he hadn't seen some of himself in the boy and taken an interest rather than ignored him as he had been advised by the more experienced instructors to do, giving the boy hope that others would notice him and care for him as well, he had no doubt that Naruto's "pranks" would have eventually turned deadly. Naruto had craved attention, not caring whether it were positive or negative, and went to extreme lengths to get it.

Coming out of his musings to the sudden and rather jarring realization that he hadn't child-proofed his apartment yet and that Naruto's hands were two inches away from his spare shuriken pouch, Iruka raced over and snatched the toddler out of danger before he started one-handedly shoving every small, sharp, and/or poisonous object he could find into the nearest drawers and cupboards. As soon as he was finished, he realized that other than the diaper bag he'd been given by the Hokage's secretary, he had none of the necessities for taking care of a small child. Fortunately, the Hokage had given him a voucher with which he would be able to purchase everything he needed so long as he didn't go overboard. Adding locks to the surprisingly long mental list of items he would be needing to care for his new charge, he carried Naruto out the door and towards the shopping district.

As soon as he got there, he was swarmed by a sizable group of women who started to coo over Naruto. Much to his shock and horror, one of the women who had crowded around him was the bloodthirsty Mitarashi woman who was currently tickling Naruto's belly to make him laugh.

"Your son doesn't look anything like you." she said, giving him a rather disturbing smile that held implications he didn't want to consider at the moment, especially since he already had one small child to care fore despite the fact that he wasn't quite ready to be a father.

"He's actually one of my former students. He had an accident with that thrice damned Fountain of Youth, and since both of his parents died the day he was born and his legal guardian was deemed unfit, I was asked to take him in." he said.

"Oh, when was he born?" Anko asked, probably trying to learn the identity of the student and thereby get the identity of his parents and guardian for whatever reason, probably to satisfy her own curiosity. ANBU's T&I had files on every Shinobi in the village, and files on a good portion if not all of the civilians as well.

"October tenth, twelve years ago." he replied, deciding that it would be futile to try hiding Naruto's identity because it would be coming out soon anyways, considering the fact that both of Naruto's other teammates, one of which was the last Uchiha, had also been de-aged.

"But the only person born on that day was..." Anko said, looking startled. Realization was starting to dawn on the other women in the group who looked torn between cooing at the cute toddler who was smiling and giggling at them or backing away from the vessel of the Kyuubi. It was no wonder Naruto had nearly gotten adopted fifteen times before the prospective parents learned who he was and backed out the last time he was that age. Despite the fact that Naruto was unusually small and rather skinny for his age, he was probably one of the cutest toddlers that had ever existed.

"A boy whose mother died of complications from childbirth, and whose father died fighting the Kyuubi. Taking other events into consideration as well, the poor kid's life really went down the crapper that day." he said, forestalling whatever negative comments were about to be made before he turned to leave.

"I was told that it had no parents." a woman he tentatively identified as a cashier at the grocery store two blocks from his apartment said.

"Didn't your parents tell you were babies came from? Of course Naruto had parents. Uzumaki Kushina..." he started, preparing to go into a long winded rant that probably would have gotten him killed if it had continued, but catching himself at the last second. He didn't know who Naruto's father was aside from the fact that he'd been told that the man had been one of the Shinobi killed by the Kyuubi, but the boy's resemblance to Uzumaki Kushina whom he'd seen around the village when he was a kid was unmistakable.

"Oh, so the kid was a..." A middle aged housewife gasped, interrupting Iruka.

"A what?" one of the younger women who was a little slow on the uptake asked.

"Most people assumed that it didn't have any parents because there were never any MEN in Konoha with the name Uzumaki dear." the housewife said, warming up to the subject which looked to be turning into a juicy bit of gossip. "We just thought it was a random name given to a "baby" that had appeared out of nowhere, since, aside from Kushina, the Uzumaki clan was virtually extinct. If I remember correctly, that Uzumaki girl was just like that boy before his accident, always running around smiling, laughing, and pulling the stupidest pranks. He must've taken after his father in looks though, Kushina was a redhead like the rest of her clan."

* * *

Sasuke wondered if he were cursed. First, his clan gets massacred by his brother, and then this happens. Of all of the idiots who were stupid enough to drink out of that damn Fountain of Youth that he should have remembered since his father had once warned him about it on a rare trip outside the village, he was the only one to keep his memories.

For the first day or so, his memories had been rather muddled, and he'd been highly confused and acted like the two year-old he physically was. After everything sorted itself out though, he continued pretending to be a two year-old because he knew that if anyone knew that he'd kept his memories he be taken away and experimented on Last Uchiha or no. Now that he was back in the village, he was forced to keep up the charade indefinitely because if he was dragged off to a lab somewhere, he'd never get strong enough to defeat Itachi. Being back in diapers was just a temporary setback as far as he was concerned.

When he'd returned to Konoha, he had been sent to live with the Hyuuga who had left him in the care of his former classmate Hinata who was once again trying to feed him cookies. He hated sweets.

"No!" he yelled like he'd once seen an angry toddler do as he pushed the cookie away before crossing his arms and pouting.

"Aww, how cute!" Hinata said, before offering him some candy that she'd pulled out of her pocket.

"No!" he shrieked, throwing the candy across the room surprised that a part of him was actually enjoying this.

* * *

Sakura, who would have been about fifty if she hadn't encountered the Fountain of Youth four times scooted across the floor playing with blocks, completely oblivious to the fact that she'd been going through puberty the week before.

The first time Sakura had encountered the fountain that never stayed in one spot and therefore couldn't be fenced off and quarantined, she'd been a twenty year old Jonin who had been leading her team of Genin around the forest for scouting training as they would soon be going to war. A few weeks from then, the chubby cheeked brats she had been teaching would be soldiers in a war that was already ravaging several countries, and spilling into their own. She had refilled her canteen in the fountain alongside her students, all of them unknowing of the danger. Fortunately for her students, she drank first that day. After watching in horror as their sensei was de-aged, they emptied their canteens, flung them into the bushes, marked the fountain as a danger, and carried her home.

Ten years later, the now twelve year old Sakura was on a low C ranked mission searching for a lost child. As she searched, she'd gotten extremely thirsty, and when she heard the sound of trickling water she followed it to a clear pool that surrounded a pile of rocks from which its source flowed which was located in the center of a wide grassy clearing. Ignoring the sign that said **CAUTION!: ****PUBERTY!** which should have alerted her to the fact that there might be something wrong with the water, she knelt down and drank. Her Jonin sensei, who had had a feeling of foreboding which had caused him to go look for his student rather than the client's child, had been ten seconds behind her, and could only watch helplessly as the girl who had once been his sensei turned back into a toddler, again. This time however, she was about four years-old rather than two, and fortunately didn't need to be potty trained for a third time.

Twelve years later, a sixteen year old Chunin named Sakura who had been a veteran of the Third Great Shinobi World War raced through the woods around Konoha, while her boyfriend Hyuuga Akira raced after her, both of them having decided to have fun fooling around together on their day off. They simultaneously landed in the wide grassy clearing that was located about ten miles away from the village pleasantly winded, listening to the wind sigh through the trees and the tinkle of water coming from the small pool at the base of a pile of rocks a few feet away. Feeling thirsty, Sakura brushed past a sign that made her snicker and bent down to drink.

"Sakura, I don't think you should..." The Hyuuga branch house member said as Sakura started drinking.

It was too late. The love of Hyuuga Akira's life started shrinking and didn't stop until she was approximately three years old. When he brought Sakura to the home of the people he assumed to be her grandparents after he reported what had happened to the Hokage, he was startled by their reaction.

"If I'd known that this would happen again, I would have told you to get her pregnant instead of warning you away son." The man who looked to be in his sixties said when he answered the door.

Nine years later Sakura, who again had the mind and body of a two year old sat playing with an old set of blocks that unknown to her had been a gift to her from Jiraiya's parents fifty years earlier while her own parents who were now in their mid-seventies discussed what to do with her in case they died before she grew up or encountered the Fountain of Youth for a fifth time, whichever came first.

* * *

Author's Note: As to why Sasuke has his memory, it is because he'd activated his Sharingran during the mission to Wave. Thanks to the Sharingran having some sort of unforeseen power Sasuke retained his memory, but is stuck in the body of a two year-old and will have to grow naturally to get back to his twelve year-old self physically.

**Edited 8-30-12**


	3. Rumors

As the sun set, an Umino Iruka who was tired from all of the shopping he had done plodded through the village, completely oblivious to the gossip that was flying across said village, and the guessing game that was getting started. Throughout the day, Iruka had wandered from shop to shop toting an increasingly cranky toddler as he searched for everything he needed, hunting down the best bargains he could find. After purchasing locks for every cabinet and drawer in his apartment so Naruto wouldn't get into anything he shouldn't, he went and bought the first item on his list, which was a small bed for Naruto since he'd been informed that the boy would grow to big for a crib in about a year, and he'd still need to get a bed for the kid anyways. Then, he'd run around buying diapers, one of those potty training toilet things, plastic dishes and child sized chopsticks, food, clothes, toy kunai, toy shuriken, picture books since Naruto had been practically illiterate the last time around and it would be best to get a good start this time, and about a million other things before he finally decided to call it a day.

Despite the fact that he was tired and just wanted to either sit down or get a head-start on catching up on the sleep he would soon be losing, he decided to stop at Ichiraku Ramen for dinner since he knew that it was Naruto's favorite. Being there and not having Naruto sitting next to him trying to empty his wallet with his stomach was strange at first, but went from strange to exceedingly painful with each passing second as the fact that the Naruto he had known was gone forever was firmly driven home by the absence of a voracious blond by his side. When Teuchi set a bowl of his favorite ramen in front of him, he was assaulted by the memories his cheerful blond student, and barely noticed when little Naruto started grabbing and eating the contents of his untouched bowl of ramen on his own rather than waiting for him to feed him.

Giving up after a half-hour during which his appetite failed to appear, he sighed sadly, paid Teuchi for the meal that had been ravaged by the toddler on his lap, and left the half filled bowl and the mess of ramen that surrounded it at the counter as he turned and trudged home with a sated and sleeping Naruto drooling on his shoulder. He knew that his purchases would have already been delivered to his apartment by the Yamanaka girl's team by then, which meant that as soon as he lay Naruto down, he would be spending the rest of the night putting things away and installing the locks he had purchased.

* * *

Sasuke spent most of the day after Hinata had released him when he finally deigned to eat something wandering around the Hyuuga compound attempting to familiarize himself with it since he would be staying there for a while. His progress was constantly hindered by his size and his physical age, as most things around here had been constructed with use by people who were much larger than he currently was in mind. He had often been forced to go around things he could have easily climbed or leapt over as a twelve year old, and on one memorable occasion had taken a fall down a small flight of stairs when he'd misjudged the distance between steps. He had also found himself back at his starting point (Hiashi Hyuuga's residence) several times when members of the clan noticed him wandering about and decided to return him to his new guardians. Though he had often fought to escape the clutches of those who found him, he had been easily overpowered every time. That had mostly been because he couldn't fight with his all, or someone would realize something was up, the game would be over, and it would be off to the lab with him.

As the sun set, he found himself to be completely exhausted and crankier than usual. When Hinata tried to hold him in her lap during dinner, he bit her much to both of their surprise. Biting really was a completely unsasukelike thing to do. The last time he'd bit someone had been when he was four, and he'd been spanked for his troubles before being forced to sit through a nigh on interminable lecture on why biting people was beneath the Uchiha. The implications of this disgraceful behavior disturbed him, it was as if a part of himself was forcing him to be the toddler that he physically was rather than the Pre-teen he remembered being.

He just hoped that he didn't lose his memories as he began to fear he was doing as he tried to recall his mother's face, he would never be able to avenge his clan otherwise.

* * *

The Third Hokage groaned as the reports kept flooding in as they had been all afternoon. He was currently listening to a report from Karasu who had overheard a potentially unsettling conversation taking place in one of the local bars that the village shinobi often frequented. From the sound of it, someone had gotten dangerously close to blowing the secret of Naruto's paternity wide open, a secret that had kept Iwa off of the boy's back for more than a decade.

This nightmare had all started when a careless comment made by the young Umino boy had sent rumors flying about town, rumors that he could ill afford to have flying about, especially now that Naruto was in such a vulnerable state. Now, everyone was trying to guess who Naruto's father was, which was something he hadn't wanted happening in case the right answer somehow got to Minato's former enemies. Fortunately, it didn't seem that anyone had hit on the correct answer so far. But, he knew that it was only a matter of time before it happened.

Naruto's resemblance to the Senju that he had inherited from his mother's side of the family from the branch of the clan that had settled along the coast before they had started intermarrying with the Uzumaki who had founded the island nation of Whirlpool long before the founding of Konoha seemed to be working for the child for now. Those who had already known Naruto's true parentage had thankfully kept silent and let others guess, and those who had been left to guess had pretty much unanimously guessed wrong so far. The top candidate for Naruto's father in the minds of the villagers was Tobirama-sensei's illegitimate grandson Arihiro Sato who had been known to be something of a player, and who had actually been sniffing around Kushina for a while before Minato had told him on no uncertain terms to shove off.

The fact that the young Arihiro had been blond and had died during the Kuubi attack before Minato had managed to seal the monster away had helped matters immensely, because there were no discrepancies with the facts that Iruka had rather foolishly revealed that would cause people to reject the idea and look further. There were always those who looked further even after they were given a reasonable enough answer though, it it was those people he was worried about.

* * *

Kakashi had been trying to get drunk enough to forget he'd even had Genin team when the rumor started sweeping through the bar. When he'd heard it, he'd nearly laughed his ass off. He'd been there when Minato-sensei had not so calmly explained to that Sato jerk that Kushina was not available, and that he didn't appreciate him bothering her. Seeing Arihiro Sato, who was known to be a rather badass ninja who wasn't quite on the level of say Minato-sensei or Jiraya, just about piss himself had been the highlight of his week when it had happened. The man had been too scared to even look at Kushina-nee for months afterwards.

He didn't stop laughing when someone started comparing a photo of Naruto that had obviously been taken a couple hours earlier considering the fact that the background of the photo was a Chunin vest to a baby photo of the Shodai Hokage's grandson Nawaki that was in a book on the Senju clan since they couldn't find a picture of that Sato jerk. It was a pointless exercise as far as he was concerned, as a resemblance to the Senju would tell them absolutely nothing, since you could grab a random person off of just about any street on the continent and have a roughly one in seven chance of finding that they bore a resemblance to the Shodai and Nidaime Hokages. Even though the Senju family name was nearly extinct, the Senju clan itself is rather extensive, and had branches that had settled just about everywhere before marrying into the local populace. Heck, even he was a descendant of the Senju from a few generations back.

* * *

Iruka sighed as he installed the final lock on the kitchen cabinet that contained his dishes. With that task taken care of, he could be reasonably certain that Naruto wouldn't get into anything more dangerous than a box of over-sized crayons which had been designed for use by toddlers and hurt himself. Despite the fact that he was tired and really wanted to call it a night, he then decided to turn his attention to the small bed that needed to be put together so Naruto would have something to sleep on since he didn't want to run the risk of rolling over on the boy if he brought him into his bed. As he looked over the rather complicated set of instructions, he could swear that he could hear...Oh gods, NO!

Racing back into his bedroom where he had left Naruto, he discovered that he was too late. Naruto was at least half way through with taking a piss in the corner between his dresser and the wall, his diaper lay abandoned on the bed.

"NARUTO STOP PEEING IN THE CORNER!" Iruka yelled as he ran to grab the boy, waking several neighbors in the process.

**Edited 8-30-12**


	4. Gaara

Iruka had thought he had gotten the whole raising a toddler thing down in the couple of months since he had taken his age reversed former student in. There had been a number of surprises early on, but they had settled into something resembling a routine, which led to him believing that he'd sorted out all of Naruto's quirks and becoming complacent. That had of course been until one day when he was about to bathe Naruto, and the naked toddler squirmed out of his hands, dropped to the floor and ran out of the bathroom before he could get up from the kneeling position he'd been in when he'd been about to clean the small child who had been rather liberally coated in his lunch which had mostly gone on him rather than in him. Naruto then proceeded to dive out of the nearest open window before he could catch him.

His heart had nearly stopped when that had happened, and as he made his way to the window faster than he thought possible, he'd had visions of a broken toddler whose head was cracked open dancing through his head, visions that fortunately turned out to have been incorrect.

When Naruto hit the ground outside, he'd been stunned for about a second or two before he ran off giggling madly, apparently unharmed. This had of course led to a chase around the village, during which, much to his embarrassment, he soon lost his charge. It was as he fruitlessly searched for a naked two year-old who should have stood out like a sore thumb that he remembered that the only reason he had been able to catch the boy who had outrun both the ANBU and the Military Police before his accident was that on some level, the boy trusted him not to hurt him and was willing to be caught by him. While this Naruto also trusted him, he probably wanted to explore all of the places he hadn't been able to since he was usually securely strapped into a stroller every time he left the apartment, when he wasn't in his playpen at either the Academy or the Missions Assignment desk that was. There were far too many dangers present in the village for him to allow the small child to explore to his heart's content however, and he had to get him back before something unfortunate happened.

He finally found a dirt covered Naruto near a Genin team that had come from Suna to attend the Chunin exams after a couple hours of frantic searching. The filthy child was holding his arms out to a red haired boy with a gourd strapped to his back who was around the age Naruto should have been wanting him to pick him up. He was less nervous about the boy being around these kids than he would be about him being around shinobi from other foreign countries, since Suna was an ally of Konoha. He could only imagine the sort of disaster that would have happened if the boy had run into someone from say Kiri or worse, Iwa.

"Naruto wants you to pick him up." he told the boy who was looking at Naruto in confusion and annoyance. "Would you help me get him back to my apartment, if you don't mind?"

The boy apparently hadn't minded, because he picked Naruto up rather uncertainly, as if he had absolutely no idea how to hold a child. He gave the boy a few pointers, and soon Naruto was no longer being held out at arm's length. He wondered if he made the right decision when he saw the looks of shock on the boy's teammates' faces though.

* * *

Gaara had been mildly irritated that he had to tell Kankuro to put the small child that had run into him down twice. The naked child who was obviously a boy couldn't have been more than two or so, and undoubtedly had worried parents out looking for him, parents who would cause trouble if they saw Kankuro manhandling their son. Instead of running away like he expected it to, the instant he was set back down on the ground, the toddler had stared up at him with a pair of impossibly wide watery blue eyes, held its arms out to him, and said "Up".

He had absolutely no idea what the kid had wanted until a few seconds later when a Konoha Chunin with his hair up in a ponytail and a scar across his nose had told him that it wanted to be picked up. It had wanted him, the demon of the sands that children ran away from screaming in terror to pick it up. Not only that, but the man who was supposed to be tending to the child was actually willing to trust him to carry the child all the way to his apartment.

After the shockingly trusting man informed him of the correct way to hold a child, he introduced himself. His name was Umino Iruka, and he was an instructor at the Ninja Academy. The blond haired, blue eyed, dirt covered toddler was named Uzumaki Naruto, and Iruka had taken him in after some sort of accident had left him without a suitable guardian. After the introductions had been made, he had spent the next several minutes carrying the small, slightly squirmy, and surprisingly heavy bundle that was Uzumaki Naruto to the man's apartment. When they had reached said apartment, he and his teammates had been amazed at the fact that the man had continued to be so stupidly trusting as to actually allow them inside, his comments on resetting the traps as soon as they left notwithstanding.

When they had entered the Chunin Iruka's apartment, he offered him and his siblings some food and drinks before requesting that he help wash the child that didn't seem to want to be put down yet.

Konoha was a strange and very foreign place, and he wasn't sure how to deal with the trusting people who inhabited it. When it came to most of them, killing them wouldn't verify his existence and would therefore be pointless, so they could safely be ignored much as most of Suna's inhabitants were. But, how do you ignore someone who was trusting enough to allow you to pick them up? How do you ignore someone who was willing to allow you into their apartment with very few reservations, even if it was only "just this once"?

How did you ignore people who didn't attack you, or run screaming, or quake in fear at the sight of you?

* * *

Sasuke tried once again to get into the Hyuuga family library which was forbidden to uninvited Non-Hyuuga and children under the age of five. It wasn't like he had anything else to do at the moment. He had usually been rather unflappable since the Massacre, not letting anything affect him while he focused on vengeance, but he found himself using a particularly nasty swearword after what had seemed to be his hundredth failed attempt at entering the library. Hyuuga Hiashi, who had been passing by at that moment, had obviously heard him, because the man had promptly picked him up and swatted him on the behind a couple of times saying "You will not use that sort of language in my home" while he did so. Much to his embarrassment, he found tears welling up in his eyes from the shock and the pain as the Hyuuga set him down.

He was not going to cry. He was going to get revenge for this. He was not going to cry.

"I'm beginning to wonder why Fugaku and Mikoto didn't drown their kids at birth." he heard Hiashi mutter as he effortlessly walked into the library that so frustrated him.

Yes, he was most definitely going to get revenge.

* * *

Raising a young Ninja was tiring the first time around, and even moreso during the second and the third...It was especially difficult when you were old enough to be great-grandparent, and therefore should have been spending your twilight years doting on said great-grandchildren until your grandchildren came by to take them home. It was for this reason that Sakura's parents found themselves dipping into their rapidly dwindling retirement funds to hire Genin teams to watch their child who should have long-ago left the house and started a family of her own.

Today, the Genin team that was looking after Sakura who was once again a toddler while Mr. and Mrs. Haruno got some much needed rest was the one that belonged to Maito Gai.

Lee happily rolled the ball back to little Sakura as the both of them sat on the floor playing. She was a rather adorable and very cheerful child, and he was happy to be watching her. A little ways over, Neji and TenTen were in a corner gossiping about the Uchiha boy's latest escapades in the Hyuuga compound. Apparently, the boy was an ill behaved, ill tempered, spoiled little brat who never tired of poking his nose into places where it didn't belong.

Gai-sensei was watching him play with Sakura with a contemplating look on his face that showed a faint hint of regret as well.

"What is it Gai-Sensei?" he finally asked.

"I'm beginning to wonder if I should have taken that woman up on her offer." Gai-sensei said, sounding slightly wistful as he watched Sakura roll the ball back to him.

"What offer?" he asked.

"She said that her biological clock was really ticking and she was starting to get very very desperate, and wondered if I would be willing to get her pregnant." Gai-sensei replied.

"Someone actually wanted Gai-sensei to reproduce?!" Neji said, sounding far more horrified than the situation warranted.

**Edited 8-30-12**


	5. Chunin Exams!

It was the day before the Chunin Exams were to start, and the Hokage felt like slamming his head into a wall repeatedly. The day had only been just a little more than mildly bothersome, until one of his assistants had raced into the room and informed him that Konoha had secured this year's choice summer hosting slot and the bragging rights that went with it under the condition that the "Last of the Uchiha" would participate, and that contracts had been signed to that effect.

Should Konoha "renege" on their deal, the village's reputation would be tarnished, and they would never again be able to host the better attended of the two Chunin Exams that took place each year. With Konoha unable to properly showcase its up and coming talents, customers would go elsewhere, taking their money with them.

Unfortunately, the star of the show as it were was currently two years old and had been temporarily removed from the Ninja program until he could be retrained, and therefore wouldn't be able to provide the spectacle that the V. had been anticipating in the four and a half years since a Uchiha had last been seen in the competition. Sasuke's cousin Satoshi had put on quite the performance in Lightning, and many people had been hoping for an encore. The best he could offer however, would be a Uchiha Sasuke who would undoubtedly fail out before the exam even properly started because he was too young to comprehend what was going on. Hopefully, any Hyuuga who might make it through would be considered acceptable substitutes.

* * *

Hyuuga Hiashi watched as his elder daughter very patiently dressed the screaming Uchiha brat in a bright blue outfit with a yellow duck on the front and the Uchiha fan stitched on the back, before rather thoughtfully pinning the paperwork that had arrived the night before to his shirt. He had the feeling that the girl would take the child all the way to the exam room despite the fact that it had been strongly implied that the child was to be left just inside the front door with a couple of toys to distract him until time ran out when the paperwork had been delivered.

Hinata would make a good mother someday. She was far better at nurturing others than fighting, just as her own mother had been. It was a pity that he had to push her, because the clan didn't want a "mother" leading them.

* * *

Iruka grumbled as he stuffed the envelope containing Naruto's paperwork into the front pocket of his overalls. He'd been tempted to "accidentally" leave it at home, but the Hokage had ordered that the temporarily reformed Team 7 be given the same chance to enter the exams as every other team, which meant bringing the paperwork along with Naruto when he left him at the Academy where the first phase of the Exam was to take place.

When he tried to point out that Naruto was far too young to be taking the exams the night before, the Hokage had informed him that he had no choice due to certain contractual obligations, and that there was virtually no chance of him entering, much less passing the the first phase, and therefore Naruto was in no danger whatsoever.

After straightening Naruto's little froggy backpack once more, he stood aside to turn the boy loose amongst the Genin who were all several times larger than him.

Naruto promptly spotted the sibling team from Suna whom they'd seen wandering around the village once or twice since the day Naruto had escaped during bathtime and raced over to greet them.

* * *

The Harunos sighed as they set their daughter down just inside the front door of the building in which the first stage of the Chunin Exams was to take place. This was the third time their only child was to take the Exams, and it was several years sooner than they expected. They would have wished her luck, but she wouldn't have understood, and it wouldn't really matter anyways because they were just going to have to pick her up in an hour or so after she failed to reach the room in which the written portion of the Exam was to take place.

The Genin team that had watched their daughter the day before arrived just as they were about to leave.

The teacher's clone smiled upon seeing Sakura, walked over to her, picked her up, threw her in the air, and caught her on her way down. Sakura laughed happily at this, and Kinmaru sighed sadly. He barely remembered when he was young enough to throw his child into the air like that. Now, he was old and broken, and instead of a large crowd of grandchildren and great grandchildren to dote on, he was once again raising his daughter.

* * *

Gaara rather reluctantly set the small blonde toddler he'd carried upstairs down outside the door to the room in which the first phase of the Exams was to take place, as he was certain that the child would not be allowed inside. If it were up to him, he would have let the trusting child who was so young that he was more like a small animal than a person come inside with him, but it wasn't up to him, and he wasn't allowed to fail in the task ahead of him. If he was disqualified from this portion of the Exams, Suna's plans for invasion would be ruined, and he'd never hear the end of it.

Despite the fact that he'd spent more than a week here getting used to the place and the people who lived in it, he was still somewhat awed by the amount of trust both the child and his guardian had in him. It was rather strange being in a village where the people didn't run screaming at the sight of him, where one of the shinobi had actually allowed him into his home and let him eat at his table, and where a couple of the shopkeepers had actually dared to short-change him. Along with being irritating, it felt kind of ...nice.

* * *

"And, this is where the ride ends." Lee said cheerfully as he set Sakura down just outside of the room where the Exams would be taking place. Sakura was a happy, cheerful child, and fun to be around. Because of that, he wanted to be around her longer. Unfortunately, he could not bring her into the exams with him.

"I shall see you once more when the test is over." he said to the child who started tugging the leg of his spandex leotard and begging to be picked back up.

He very gently broke her grip and handed his papers over to his sensei before walking through the doorway that led to the rest of his Ninja career. A career that, a year ago, it had been uncertain that he would even have.

* * *

Hinata blinked in mild surprise when she saw little Sasuke's teammates standing next to the door of the room where she'd been told to report for the Chunin Exams. Naruto looked so adorable with his orange shirt and little green overalls with the Uzumaki spiral on the front and froggy backpack that she wanted to pinch his tiny cheeks. It was a pity that when he once again became the boy she had a crush on, she would be far too old for him. Sighing, she set Sasuke down to play with his teammates before she handed over her paperwork.

She wished that things could have been different, and that the Naruto that she so admired were here, but life always managed to deal you a blow that you could never quite get back up from. There was nothing she could do about it but try to move on.

* * *

Kakashi arrived to not take his students' paperwork shortly before the first phase of the exams was set to begin. He couldn't believe that he'd gotten roped into this, especially now when he was starting to get back into his old routine and forget that he'd even had a Genin team. Much to his surprise, his former team was there waiting for him, or rather standing in the hallway outside the room in which the First Phase of the Exams was to take place fighting with each-other because Sasuke had stolen someone's sandwich.

He couldn't come up with the excuse that the children hadn't turned in their paperwork, because he could clearly see Sasuke's pinned to him, Naruto's tucked in the front of his overalls, and Sakura's sticking out of the small pink lunch bag that was laying abandoned while the girl wailed on Sasuke whom she most definitely did not have a crush on at this point. Sighing, he gathered up the paperwork and ushered the children through the door to the room in front of them.

With the team's entry, the village's contractual obligations regarding the Uchiha's participation were fulfilled, and the village's reputation would technically remain untarnished in this matter. He wasn't worried about his former students, since there was nothing in that room more dangerous than a sharpened pencil, and it's not like they would pass in the first place.

**Edited 8-30-12**


	6. The First test

Kabuto walked over to the group of Rookie Genin, immediately noticing the surprising lack of the Uchiha heir. Cursing the fact that his information apparently wasn't up to date thanks to the extended mission he had been dragged on recently, he knew he had to ask a question he that was dreading the answer to, considering how much of Orochimaru-sama's plans had hinged on Sasuke's presence.

"Where is team Seven?" he asked one of the nearest Genin casually. Considering certain contracts, the team in q1uestion was required to be here, but they obviously weren't

"They had an accident with the Fountain of Youth." Akimichi Chouji replied as he dug into a bag of barbeque flavored chips.

"Really? That's gotta suck." Kabuto said somewhat sympathetically, only just keeping to his amiable loser facade in light of this news. This was bad. This was very bad. Master Orochimaru had come to the exams to personally test the Uchiha heir.

"Yeah, rumor has it that it was at least the third time for Sakura." Yamanaka Ino, who was practically draped over a fuming Neji, oblivious to the fact that the boy's female teammate was shooting death glares at her, said.

"The Fire Country has a Fountain of Youth?!" one of the Shinobi from Kumo asked completely surprised.

"Yep." Inuzuka Kiba replied, not turning away from his one-sided glaring match with the Suna Jinchuriki who was staring at the boy as if an extra head had grown out of his stomach or something.

"How can you be so blase about something like that?!" one of the Mist Ninja yelled.

"Because it causes more harm than it does good, and is better avoided. It will make you younger as the name implies, but it also brings you back to where you were at that age and erases your memories from beyond that point. So, for instance, if you're turned into a three year old, you won't remember having been older than three. Another problem with it is that you can't predict how much water it would take to get you to a certain age if you tried. There had been an experiment using several volunteers who were dying from either a terminal illness or old age. Each person was given the exact same amount. For one person it had only set him back a couple of years, for another it set her back so far that she had to wait a few years to go back to the Academy. The cause of potential death didn't seem to factor into the result. It's so Troublesome." Nara Shikamaru said, stunning those who knew that he was usually too lazy to speak for even half as long as he did.

He winced along with several Ninja from other countries at the thought of losing everything they'd gained and being forced to start over. Such a Fountain of Youth would be worse than useless to a Shinobi, and it was easy to see why even Master Orochimaru who wanted to live long enough to learn every jutsu that existed or will exist completely avoided the thing even though he had come up with a way of predicting where it would next appear.

The door to the exam room opened, and when everyone turned to look at the team that was really cutting it close since there were less than five minutes before the Exam was due to start, they saw Hatake Kakashi shove three toddlers into the room and close the door. One of the toddlers proudly wore the symbol that marked the alliance between Konoha and the now defunct Uzushiogakure on the front of his bright green overalls, another of the toddlers wore a bright blue outfit with a yellow duck on the front and a uchiwa fan on the back, and the third wore a bright pink jumper with a yellow turtle-necked shirt underneath.

"Is that...?" he started, somewhat stunned, and therefore taking longer than normal to fully process what he was seeing. There in front of him was the ill fated, and some said cursed, Team 7 in all its two year old glory, with Uzumaki Naruto staring at the room full of Genin with impossibly wide blue eyes, Uchiha Sasuke tearing a sandwich apart, and Haruno Sakura hitting him and screaming at him as he did so.

How was it that every time a Team 7 passed the Genin test, they always came to such tragic, and in some cases, frankly bizarre ends?

"Awwww. Naruto's sooo cute." the Yamanaka girl squealed as she detached herself from Neji and raced over to the trio. This had apparently been a call to action, as almost every other kunoichi in the room including the tomboy Kin followed her.

* * *

Sasuke was pretty much unaware of the eyes that were on him and his teammates when he entered the room in which the first phase of the Chunin Exams were to take place, as he was much too busy tearing apart the sandwich he'd stolen from the Pink Annoyance's lunch bag. Ignoring the bread, the slice of bologna, the cheese, and the lettuce, he went for the prize, the one thing he hadn't had in months.

It just had to be his rotten luck that half of the Hyuuga clan were allergic to tomatoes, making them the one food that was absolutely forbidden in the compound.

Ino arrived while he was busy scarfing down the two mayonnaise covered tomato slices. The squealing girl reached down before he could react and...Picked up Naruto?! Moments later Ino and Naruto were surrounded by a large group of squealing kunoichi, all of whom were focused on Naruto. Before he knew it, he was shunted off to the side, which was a completely alien experience to him.

His world had already been flipped upside down, so why not this as well?

* * *

Neji sighed in relief when Ino finally let go of him and went to practically smother one of the toddlers that had just been shoved into the room. Ever since Sasuke had been de-aged, his former fanclub had decided to follow the "cool older boy" and folded into his own much to his horror and regret. Ino had been the most rabid of these new fangirls, pursuing him with the same intensity she had once had for the Uchiha.

He heard a foreign shinobi wearing a hitai-ate that marked him as being from Kirigakure who was standing nearby mutter "What's with the toddlers?"

"That would be the current Team 7." he replied.

"Current?" the other teenager asked, apparently sensing a story behind his response.

"Last year's Team 7 was disbanded after Shimura was killed by an intruder deterrent system during a round of doorbell ditch." he said.

"What about the year before last?" the boy asked sounding interested.

"There wasn't one. The last Team 7 to pass before them was six years ago. They were disbanded three months later after their Jounin sensei and one of the team members who had dove in to rescue him drowned in a vat of beer. The one before that was killed when a building in the Red Light District landed on them after it was knocked over by the Kyuubi. The one before that did manage to make it through the Chunin Exams, and the two survivors were folded into Team Minato..." he said, giving the history of the prior Team 7s before the boy started asking more questions. He'd learned all of this after he'd heard whispers of the Team 7 curse starting up after the Uchiha brat had been moved in with his clan.

"Ah, so they're basically the local equivalent of Team 4." the boy said.

He admittedly found himself curious about the Team 4 that the foreign teenager mentioned. If they were anything like Konoha's Team 7, the story was sure to be interesting. He turned to ask the boy about Kirigakure's Team 4, but never got an answer because it was at that moment that Ibiki and the proctors swept into the room, telling them all to settle down and shut up.

* * *

Ibiki shuddered slightly when he caught sight of what one of the Mist Kunoichi set down on the floor soon after he entered the room and took charge, and was currently guiding over to get a number and a test sheet. As the creature approached, there was a phantom pain in a certain set of scars on his arms.

The last time the creature was two, its godfather, who just so happened to manage one of Konoha's better spy networks, had sent it a stuffed duck for its birthday. Someone got the bright idea that there might be a message hidden in the duck, because after all who'd give a birthday present to the Kyuubi's vessel, and sent a junior member of the Intelligence Department (namely him) to retrieve it. The red eyes, claws, fangs and screams of "Mine! Mine! Mine!" still haunted his nightmares to this day.

Stealing every birthday present that wasn't personally handed to the little animal for the past ten years was an exceedingly petty revenge, but it gave him a slight sense of satisfaction.

* * *

Kakashi sighed as he walked into the room where the other Jounin who had Genin teams that were entered in the Exams were waiting for their students to finish.

"Kakashi, my eternal rival, may I ask what you are doing here?" Gai said, taken aback by his presence.

"My team's been entered." he muttered as he slumped down into an empty chair.

Asuma frowned at this.

"Is there something wrong?" Kurenai asked.

"What were the rules of the first test again?" Asuma asked.

"The posted rules, or the actual ones?" He asked.

"The actual ones." Asuma replied.

"Basically it's a test on intelligence gathering. If the team is caught cheating five times, they're out. There is a psychological element to the test as well in which the students are caught between a rock and a hard place and given the option to quit." he said.

Something seemed to dawn on the insufferable Gai.

"So if your students don't cheat because they can't read or write, and don't quit because they don't understand what's going on..." Gai started.

* * *

Naruto smiled at the pretty lady who set him on a chair in front of a piece of paper and a pencil. It must be time to draw quietly while daddy Iruka drew on the paper he wasn't supposed to touch. Daddy Iruka wasn't here though. Gaara was. He liked Gaara. Maybe Gaara would let him sit on his lap and read him a story later.

Sakura smiled happily when she saw the paper that was set before her. It was drawing time. She loved drawing time. There weren't any crayons though. It was a good thing mommy put crayons in her lunch bag along with more paper. That mean black haired boy had stolen her sandwich from her lunch bag. She hated him.

Sasuke sighed as he was picked up and put into a chair and his test was set in front of him. This was not how he had pictured being involved in the Chunin exams. He had expected to sweep in here, catch everyone's attention and show them that he was the best of the best of the best. He was sorely tempted to answer the questions on the test, but the knowledge that he would be experimented on if it was revealed that he wasn't mentally two years old stopped him. He would watch his teammates' actions and take his cues from them.

**Edited 8-30-12**


	7. Phase Two Begins

Ibiki felt like slamming his head against the wall. Instead, he remained outwardly calm as he gave the speech he'd planned out when he learned that he was going to be an exam proctor this year. When he'd created the rules for this phase of the exam, he had had children aged six and up in mind. He hadn't pictured this happening in a million years...

They hadn't been caught cheating, and they hadn't quit, therefore answering the tenth question correctly at least, so they passed. Of course, the reason they passed had been because they were too young to understand what was going on, but according to the rules of the exam, he couldn't fail them on those grounds.

In the middle of the speech, Mitarashi Anko came flying through the window. Her loud and extremely flashy entrance startled the remaining teams out of the state of mind he'd been carefully cultivating. Continuing after this point now that the mood had been broken would be useless.

Anko turned to the students, apparently prepared to say something intimidating that would have them eating out of her hand. He knew the instant that she had caught sight of Team 7, because she suddenly started laughing her ass off.

After Anko choked out her instructions between fits of laughter, everyone filed out of the room, leaving him behind to gather the exam papers. As expected, those that belonged to the members of Team 7 were covered in a wide variety of scribbles and doodles. He didn't even want to know what the Uchiha had done to their son to make him not only stay on the paper, but draw so neatly as well. The desks surrounding his teammates' exam papers were covered in scribbles in pencil and crayon respectively, and he had a sneaking suspicion that that kid from Iwa had been sharpening Naruto's pencil during the exam just to spite them.

* * *

Hinata briefly wondered whether she should have helped Sasuke and his teammates down to Training Ground 44, but decided that since his team had passed the first portion of the Exams, it was the proper thing to do. When she heard the instructions, she was relieved. Nobody in their right mind would allow Team 7 to sign, much less turn in a waiver to get a scroll.

Team 7, unable to go any further, would be safe, and Ko who had escorted her down here would take them home where they belonged now that their little adventure was over.

* * *

Sasuke was still having a hard time believing that he had passed the first phase of the Chunin Exams, but here he was waiting for the second phase to start. When he saw how far he'd already come in the guise of a two year-old, he came to the decision then and there that he was going to go forward, and he wasn't going to let his teammates ruin it for him. When the woman who was passing out the waivers came by, he held his hand out and prepared to yell at her until she gave him his team's, but much to his surprise, she gave them to him without any prompting. Making his teammates randomly scribble on their forms while he rather clumsily wrote his name on his had been rather easy. Turning them in however had not been so easy.

They had only gotten their scroll after the crazy lady who gave them the forms said something about bragging rights and how they could retrieve them after half an hour since they would have long since lost their scroll by then. When the proctors had handed him the scroll, he had tried to put it in Sakura's lunch bag since she was the more responsible of his two teammates who each had bags, but because of the sandwich stealing incident, she wouldn't let him anywhere near it. He was forced to put it in Naruto's froggy backpack instead.

It would turn out - in his opinion at least - to be one of the best decisions he ever made.

When it was time, he randomly picked an unoccupied gate, and ushered his teammates towards it, getting bit by the Pink Menace for his troubles. After a nearly interminable wait during which several teams had incredulously stared at them the time finally came and the gates opened. Once inside the forest, he hadn't been able to get his team to go more than a hundred feet no matter what he did, including stealing Sakura's juice and running.

Compared to how the team used to be when they were all twelve, this team sucked ass.

* * *

Orochimaru couldn't help but laugh as he watched the little Uchiha child imitate his older counterparts, and eventually bully his teammates into following him into the "Forest of Death". Sasuke was a little mini-adult, just like his father had been at that age. Babysitting little Fugaku had always been something of a trial in patience.

Sakura was...well, Sakura. The civilian born Ninja had the fiery temper that went with her "Will of Fire" that he remembered from when they grew up together. Seeing the girl who'd once used Jiraiya in a game of catch with Tsunade like this was odd to say the least. He'd pretty much lost touch with her by the time they'd become Jounin, and therefore hadn't paid much attention when she'd been de-aged the first time, or the second, or the third for that matter.

The Jinchuriki looked so much like his father, but from all he'd heard and so far witnessed, Naruto was truly his mother's child, bright, brash, and bold to the point of fearlessness. Considering the child's similarities to his mother, he was glad he'd been out of the village while the boy had been growing up and returned only after he'd become a toddler again. He didn't think he'd be able to survive another generation of that family having a crush on him. While most of his former fangirls had been persistent, Kushina had been...something else. He didn't know what he would have done if little Minato hadn't caught her attention and eventually snatched her away from him.

He decided to keep an eye on the three until the proctors came to retrieve them, because it wouldn't do to allow the Uchiha child's eyes to be damaged or destroyed. His plans for Sasuke may have been put on hold for another decade or so, but they weren't completely foiled. The Mist team that had taken the next gate over arrived fifteen minutes after the teams had entered the forest. As they approached, he decided to remain out of sight and observe since he would easily be able to get there in time to kill them before they did any serious damage. As he watched, the leader of the team of Mist Genin confidently ambled over, picked Naruto up and pulled his frog shaped backpack off of him before dropping the small child on the ground. That proved to be a near fatal mistake, as he almost immediately found himself confronted with a very angry red eyed toddler with claws and fangs.

The child shrieked "Mine! Mine! Mine!" and promptly started shredding everything on the Mist Genin that he could reach, flesh and the bottom of the Mist Genin's pack included. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, especially considering how close the toddler's arms were to a certain piece of vital anatomy, the Mist Genin dropped the scroll and Naruto's bag and ran for it. His frightened teammates weren't very far behind.

* * *

Team Ten watched as the Mist Ninja ran for it, not even noticing that their scroll had fallen out of their leader's shredded pack along with several other items, and landed next to Naruto who was now rather defensively clutching his frog shaped backpack. Sasuke stood nearby looking rather stunned by what had happened, and Sakura sat nibbling on some carrot sticks she had been keeping in her bag.

Ino and Chouji simultaneously turned to each-other.

"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" they said simultaneously.

"Use Naruto to try to take over the world?" Chouji asked.

"What?!" Ino said when she finally processed Chouji's answer.

"Uh, I mean bait?" Chouji said hastily.

"Yeah, bait." Ino confirmed.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered as he joined his teammates in scooping up Team 7, squashing the numerous plans for world domination in which using Naruto would be a viable option that had started forming thanks to Chouji's obsession with Saturday morning cartoons.

Taking over the world would be far too much work, and ruling the world afterward would be far too troublesome for his tastes.

**Edited 8-30-12**


	8. Phase Two Pass!

A day and a half after entering the "Forest of Death", Team Ten arrived at the tower carrying Team Seven, having used Naruto to get a scroll for them. Shikamaru set Naruto, whom he had been the only one brave enough to carry, down as Ino and Chouji tried to puzzle out the clue on the wall. Using the toddlers as bait had worked perfectly, much to that poor unfortunate Sound team's surprise.

Poor and unfortunate? Who was he kidding? That had been freaking hilarious, and the best part about it had been that there had been virtually no work involved on his part. Watching that big guy who was practically covered in bandages climb a tree to get away from Naruto had been the highlight of his day.

As Chouji and Ino fumbled with their scrolls after divining the meaning of the poetry on the wall, Sasuke opened one of Team 7's scrolls which had been securely stowed in Naruto's backpack after the boy had thrown a fit when they'd tried to store them in their supply pouch and bullied Naruto into doing the same with the other. There was something off about the Uchiha boy, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, something he would study at his leisure later since finishing this portion of the Exams was of immediate concern. Moments after the scrolls were opened, two Chunin appeared. He recognized them as being the pair that was almost always assigned either to gate duty or to menial tasks around the Hokage Tower and Administrative complex, Kamizuki Izumo and Hagane Kotetsu if he remembered correctly.

Kotetsu looked around from his spot on top of Team 7's scrolls in confusion before finally looking down. When he did so, he nearly fell over in shock.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me!" Kotetsu yelled.

Izumo stopped giving his speech to the team and looked over to see what had shocked his partner so badly.

"I'd better get Iruka." Izumo said when he got over his own shock.

"Yeah. Kakashi and the Proctors will no doubt be relieved to learn that they're alive. Maybe we should drop by the ICU once our shift's over." Kotetsu replied, finally regaining his composure.

"Yeah, we should do that, they'll need some cheering up. Poor Ibiki, if I had that happen to me, I wouldn't want to survive. Pity he will though." Izumo said before he vanished, presumably in order to summon their former Academy Instructor.

"As Izumo was saying, congratulations on passing this portion of the exams. You will have to remain at the tower until the second phase is over and all passing teams have arrived. You will find that the tower is fully stocked with all of the necessary essentials as well as a few extra amenities. The training rooms are on the second floor, the library is on the fourth floor, the swimming pool is in the basement, and the arcade is located on the fifth. Due to noise complaints, the arcade closes at 10 pm sharp. If you go through the door behind me, one of the tower employees will hand out your room assignments." Kotetsu said.

Shikamaru picked Naruto back up and went through the door that Kotetsu had indicated when the Chunin had dismissed them, Ino and Chouji followed each carrying another member of Team 7. The instant he was in the corridor, Iruka-sensei seemingly appeared out of nowhere, raced towards him, and snatched Naruto from his arms before giving the small tot a bone crushing hug. The normally easy-going man whose appearance had almost always been impeccable was covered in blood which stained his clothing and dyed his hair which was currently loose and looked like it hadn't been brushed in days red. The man who was known for his sobriety smelled of booze, which was yet another anomaly. He really didn't want to know why these things were, as he strongly suspected, based on the clues that he'd already pieced together, that the answer would traumatize him for life.

"Naruto!" Iruka-sensei cried as he continued to smother the toddler in his embrace. "I thought you were dead!"

Shikamaru decided that it would be a good idea to get out of there before he learned anything he didn't want to about his seemingly mild-mannered Academy Instructor whom he'd never seen or even heard rumors of doing worse than yelling at unruly students. Chouji and Ino happily followed, apparently sensing that something was wrong themselves and wanting to be out of the area before any of the potential fallout hit either of them. At Chouji's suggestion, they made their way to the fifth floor after getting their room assignments. The arcade was indeed real, and not the joke they had strongly suspected it to be. There was one problem however...

"Chouji, did you bring any money?"

"No, you?"

"No, Ino?"

"No."

"Shit."

After that, they spent much of their time either in the training room or the library as they waited for the rest of the teams to arrive, teams who inevitably turned out not to have any money for the arcade. Arrive the teams did, and on the final day, it was announced that too many teams had arrived and that preliminary matches were to be held. Much to everyone's surprise, Team 7 was there amongst the group of teams that had passed the second phase of the Exams being looked after by a twitchy and overprotective Umino Iruka.

Ino had unfortunately drawn Sakura for her preliminary match, and had looked vaguely guilty as she lightly smacked the poor crying toddler during the exceedingly one-sided fight until she got her to say "I quit."

Some random guy from Rain managed to get Sasuke, and lost much to everyone's surprise when the little brat moved almost too fast for the eye to see and stabbed him in the upper thigh with the kunai he'd carried into the arena. When the guy realized that Sasuke was too quick for him to dodge and could reach a little higher, he quickly decided that it would be best to leave while there was still a chance of having children later on.

The Rain guy's male teammate got Naruto when it was his turn. Apparently, the stories about Iruka-sensei that he had been studiously avoiding for the sake of his peace of mind had gotten around to the foreign shinobi, as the older teen had swallowed when he had looked up to the stands only to see the Academy Instructor glaring down at him. The guy looked back down at Naruto, back up at Iruka-sensei, and back down at Naruto before squeaking a barely audible "I quit.".

* * *

Sasuke stared down at Hinata in shock. Why was he feeling this way? Rather than feeling indifferent to the weak girl's pain and suffering as he would normally be, he felt...

All he could see was Hinata, Hinata who was one of the few female classmates that wasn't a fangirl, being nice to him without expecting anything in return. All he could see was Hinata smiling at him like his mother used to smile at him, and doing things for him that his own mother hadn't done for him since he was tiny. All he could see was Hinata caring for him even when he pushed her away, and did his best to drive her off.

As he looked down at the broken girl who had attempted to fight her cousin after Umino-sensei had tried to show her some support, a burning need for revenge flared to life.

Neji was so going down...

**Edited 8-30-12**


	9. Phase Two Aftermath

Hinata had just woken up from the surgery that had been necessary to save her life when she felt a pair of small arms wrap themselves around her neck. Turning her head to the side, she found herself looking into the wide, concerned eyes of Uchiha Sasuke. Standing behind him, beside her hospital bed was her father, looking as impassive as always.

She had failed him yet again. It didn't matter that she had tried, she had failed. She had failed herself, her clan, and most importantly him.

She had been about to quit, about to give up when she had seen Naruto peering intently at her from Iruka-sensei's arms, Iruka-sensei who had been trying to cheer her on much as he did the rest of his students. Instead of giving up, she had fought. She had fought the way she knew Naruto would have done in the same situation, even though he would have failed just as she had. She had fought in memory of the Naruto that was, the Naruto who would fall ninety-nine times and pick himself up a hundred.

She had lost. The match hadn't even come close to being even. Neji hadn't even broken a sweat as he'd smacked her down again and again and again.

She wasn't Neji, she wasn't Hanabi, heck, she wasn't even Naruto. She was Hinata, and Hinata always was and always would be a failure. She had proven it time and time again, and this time she had almost lost her life doing so.

* * *

Morino Ibiki whimpered in pain as he curled up into a ball on his hospital bed. How the hell had Umino Iruka become an Academy Instructor instead of joining the T&I department where he obviously belonged? He had thought half the stuff that man had done was anatomically impossible until it had happened to him.

He'd thought that he had seen and done the worst a person could do to another human being while working in his own department, but that had been until Iruka had gotten his hands on him, and started teaching him an exceedingly painful lesson on what happened to people who put Naruto in danger. He'd heard that what happened to Kakashi was worse, and that Iruka hadn't even spared Anko in his booze fueled rampage when he had believed Naruto to be dead.

The Hokage had chosen well when he had made the supposedly mild-mannered Chunin Naruto's guardian. If he was willing to do all this for a child that had been placed in his care, he didn't even want to know what would happen if the man ever had children of his own. They probably wouldn't be able to find all of the pieces if someone even so much as looked at them the wrong way.

* * *

Iruka hummed softly as he rocked little Naruto and put him to bed. The poor child had suffered a great ordeal recently, and would be needing to get back into a normal routine as soon as possible in order to recover. The idiots who had thought it would be a good idea to send a trio of two year-olds into the Forest of Death had been dealt with and would never make that kind of mistake again. Little Naruto would most definitely not be fighting during the third-phase of the Exams, he would be in the spectator's box where he belonged, either on his or the Hokage's lap. That Gaara boy from Suna who'd drawn the number that placed him in opposition to Naruto in the first round would just have to find someone else to fight.

Eventually, after a longer amount of time than it usually took, Naruto's little blue eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep. He stayed to watch the child for a while just in case. After about an hour, the boy started whimpering and shifting in his sleep, obviously suffering from a nightmare. He knew the exact cause of the nightmare, because he'd been through the Forest of Death before himself, and he knew that it wasn't a place for small children.

Poor Naruto had been even more traumatized than he had thought. And because Naruto had been so traumatized, he would be teaching those bastards that had harmed the boy another lesson tomorrow morning after he left the child with someone he was sure he could trust.

Perhaps little Gaara would be willing to watch him.

* * *

Neji sighed as he turned on his radio and flopped down on his futon before leaping up like a scalded cat and changing the station. A person couldn't properly wallow in angst without the right sort of music, and the Hoppy the Frog and Friends Show definitely wasn't the right music. His day had completely gone down the toilet during the preliminaries. Instead of being given a proper opponent that he could showcase his skills against, some jackass had screwed with the system that arranged the matches, and he'd been forced to fight Hinata. Despite the fact that the Hokage and the Proctors had repeatedly said that you could kill your opponent before the matches started, they hadn't let him kill the waste of space that was heir to the Main House when his turn came.

To make matters worse, he had drawn Uchiha Sasuke as an opponent for the First Round of the Third Phase of the Exams. A year ago, he would have been almost happy about this, even six months ago he would have been happy to face the last of the Uchiha, not now though. Now however, his being forced to fight the Uchiha had been more proof that Fate hated him and wanted to make him its bitch the way it had done his father. Instead of showing everyone the superiority of the Hyuuga clan, he was going to have to beat down a toddler in front of an audience of thousands, and he would naturally look like a total douche for doing so.

When he had gotten home after the preliminaries were over, he had stoicly stood in front of his Uncle, waiting for the punishment he knew he would receive for attempting to kill his cousin. Instead of activating his seal and turning him into a martyr for the Branch House, his uncle who was only head of the Main family due to a quirk of fate had bent him over his knee and spanked him like an unruly toddler before grounding him.

As he listened to a particularly mournful song that described his mood perfectly, the door to his room slid open. An instant later, Hyuuga Hiashi stalked in, pulled the plug to the radio, and grabbed it off of the dresser.

"You're grounded." the man he was barely willing to admit was related to him said. "That means no radio."

His uncle then stalked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him, carrying his radio off to parts unknown and leaving him in silence.

Fate really hated him.

**Edited 8-30-12**


	10. Babysitting Naruto

The morning after the preliminaries had taken place, Baki sat wondering for the millionth time if staying in Konoha was a good idea. Gaara had been behaving somewhat oddly ever since they had set foot in the village they would be invading in a month. Instead of his usual homicidal rampages, the boy had been looking around at everything as if he were seeing it for the first time, and, despite the fact that he was seeing everything here for the first time, it frankly disturbed him because it was so unGaaralike that it wasn't even funny. Gaara had gone out for his usual morning walk earlier, and he had sat here waiting, and worrying about what would happen if and when Gaara finally lost it, as he was looking to do.

The door to their rooms in the village's foreigner's quarters opened as Kankuro and Temari were finishing their breakfasts and Gaara walked in carrying and unfamiliar bag, and...

No, he couldn't be...He had to be seeing things. Gaara wouldn't be so stupid or so out of it to go so far as to...

"Um, Gaara..." Kankuro said, standing between the table and the sink staring at his younger brother. "Where did you get...?"

"Umino Iruka asked me to babysit for him." Gaara replied, as he removed the small boy's shoes and set them by his own.

The plate that Kankuro had been holding fell to the floor and shattered, startling the blond toddler.

Gaara whirled to glare at his older brother.

"Do that again, and I will kill you!" Gaara snapped.

Okay, now they were in more familiar territory.

Gaara then started attempting to cuddle the small child and trying to calm him down.

Then again, maybe not...

* * *

Kakashi whimpered as he felt a familiar Chakra signature approach. There had been a time that he had thought Iruka to be too kind-hearted for the Shinobi life. That illusion had died a rather spectacular death a few days ago. Anyone who was not only capable but also willing to do the things Iruka had done to him to another human being was a person to be feared, and rightly so. It hadn't mattered to him that a number of them had been either Jounin or Tokubetsu Jounin when he'd fearlessly attacked him and all of the proctors who had been involved in the first two phases of the Exam. The lowly Chunin had swept through them all in a berzerker fury, and by the time the ANBU had come to the rescue, there had been very little left to save.

He futilely tried to make himself invisible as an ominous shadow passed over his bed.

"Your actions traumatized Naruto..." a voice that would haunt hiss nightmares for the rest of his life said.

As he waited for the pain to start, he wondered who he had killed in a previous life in order to deserve this. No matter how much fun he must have had doing so then, it had most definitely not been worth it.

* * *

Sakura was being pushed on the swings by the green boy with big eyebrows when Yellow Hair appeared with a bunch of strangers. She liked Yellow Hair. Yellow Hair was nice, not like that mean Funny Black Hair who had stolen her food and pushed her into that scary place.

As soon as Green Boy let her down from the swing, she made her way to Yellow Hair so she could play with him.

* * *

Jiraiya smiled as he passed by the park on his way to the Hokage Tower to personally give his sensei his report on the information he had recently gathered on Orochimaru's suspected movements. A very familiar looking toddler was playing with a small blond child who looked like a blond haired, blue eyed, Uzumaki Kushina. A blond child who should have become his apprentice today the way his father had once been.

What was it with Haruno Sakura and blonds?

Based on the information about her that he'd been able to gather, every last one of that girl's best friends had been blond. First had been Tsunade, then it had been what's-her-face, then that boy with the weird green eyes, and more recently it had been the Yamanaka girl. Now, it seemed that Naruto was being added to the collection.

Oh well, it didn't really matter to him either way now. He'd be giving the Hokage his report, and getting gone as soon as he was done. Staying in Konoha was far too painful these days. Had he stayed, he probably would have crawled into a bottle and not come back out. When he was outside Konoha, he didn't see constant reminders of what he had lost over the years.

* * *

In a scene that was rapidly becoming routine, Sasuke spat out the food Hanabi fed him. He'd been left in the girl's care and was not liking it one bit if his behaviour was any indication. Hanabi, who was really much to young to be caring for such a small child, then grabbed the boy and tried to force feed him. The boy struggled, and managed to bite her at one point during the struggle.

"Hanabi!" Hyuuga Hiashi snapped. "What exactly do you think you're doing?"

"The brat won't eat." his daughter replied as she let him go.

"He will when he gets hungry enough." he said as he gestured for a Branch house member to remove the plate that had been set in front of the Uchiha child.

Instead of throwing a fit and demanding the food be returned as he had expected the boy to do considering his contrary nature, the child crossed his arms and scowled as the plate was being taken away. In the day and a half since Hinata had been injured, the child had become even more ill tempered and difficult to deal with. That had been the third meal that the child had refused to eat. Now, it had become a waiting game. Hunger would overcome the boy's inherent stubbornness eventually. Either that, or the child would weaken to the point that he would have to take him to the hospital to be fed through a tube.

* * *

Temari found herself watching Gaara as Gaara watched the Naruto boy sleep during his afternoon nap. This was a side of her brother she had never seen before, not true, she'd seen it once, years ago when Gaara was still small, back before he'd turned into a homicidal maniac. She'd almost forgotten about it though.

She'd intellectually known that the boy she'd occasionally seen wandering about the village alone was her brother, but since she almost never saw him, it didn't really register and she rarely thought about it back then.

One day, when Gaara was about five or six, he had found an injured bird and brought it to Uncle Yashamaru while she had been visiting. She had watched from the next room over as Uncle Yashamaru had tried and failed to save the bird. Gaara had looked so sad when he put the dead bird into a box and carried it outside to be buried, absolutely nothing like the bloodthirsty boy he was now. The Konoha child wasn't a wounded bird, but Gaara had somehow grown attached to him all the same, and who knew how Gaara would react if he lost the toddler somehow.

Losing Naruto was a likely proposition, considering what would be happening nearly a month from now. If only for the sake of their village's safety, she would have to try and make sure it didn't happen even if she had to give up her own life to do so.

Turning to her brother with whom she rarely spoke, she said "When it happens, I'll make sure we take Naruto home with us."

Gaara turned away from the child who absorbed his attention to look at her. The expression on his face was...grateful. She hadn't seen such an expression on him before, and she found herself wanting to see it again.

**Edited 8-31-12**


	11. Phase Three

The Hokage smiled fondly as he settled Little Naruto on his lap as he sat down to watch the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams. Since Iruka was teaching at the Academy today, he had offered to bring Naruto to watch his former classmates compete from the best seat in the house. The rather reluctant manner in which the young Umino had handed the boy over before he went to tend to his responsibilities at the Academy had almost been endearing. It had only been the fact that the Kage seats were the best and the safest in the Arena that had finally sold Iruka on parting with Minato's son for the day. In addition to his guard Raido, there was another ninja there to provide snacks, entertainment, and a diaper change should Naruto need it.

Fortunately for Naruto's safety, most of the village who previously not thought about it before now assumed that the reason he was so fond of the boy was because his alleged great-grandfather had been his sensei. He had done nothing to dispel those rumors, because they were what was keeping most people, and most importantly Minato's enemies, from taking a closer look at Naruto's mother's background in order to find another possible reason.

It had been pure sentimentality on his part that had caused him to bring Naruto along today. Thanks to his little mishap, Naruto was now too young to understand the concept of classmates, and therefore wouldn't know that a number of the people competing today had been such. He had almost forgotten how sweet and well behaved Naruto had been when he had been this small before, having gotten used to the rambunctious boy who had nearly destroyed his office on several occasions, and having him in his company was most enjoyable.

As the candidates lined up in the arena, Naruto squirmed off his lap and walked over to the Kazekage whose lap he promptly tried to crawl into. The Kazekage stiffened and pushed the child away when he did so. Funny, you'd think a father of three would be more tolerant of a small child's antics. Considering what he did to his wife and youngest son however, it was more than likely that the man's children had been raised by servants and rarely if ever saw him. Naruto however would not be deterred, and had made a couple more attempts at crawling into the man's lap before he and the Kazekage rose to officially open the Third phase of the Chunin Exams.

"The First match, Uzumaki Naruto of Konoha vs. Gaara of Suna has been cancelled because Naruto's guardian has withdrawn him from the competition. Gaara wins by forfeit." Proctor Shiranui Genma announced.

The crowd booed at this.

"Anyone who has any problems with this can take them up with Umino Iruka." Genma said.

The crowd who had all apparently heard the story of what the man had done to the Exam proctors abruptly silenced.

"Next up is Uchiha Sasuke vs. Hyuuga Neji." Genma announced. "Fortunately, Sasuke's guardian has allowed him to compete."

* * *

In the dignitary seating several nobles were studying the match program which included updated information on Uchiha Sasuke as well as Uzumaki Naruto, complete with photographs taken less than a month earlier. Where the hell Iruka had managed to procure a small orange sailor suit complete with cap, nobody knew.

"That pipsqueak better win, I've got alot of money riding on this." one of the nobles said as he studied the entry for Uchiha Sasuke in which a picture of a scowling toddler dressed in traditional attire was prominent.

"You bet on the Uchiha?" the other noble said in surprise.

"Unlike some people, I didn't receive notice of the Uchiha boy's mishap until it was far too late." the first noble said snippily.

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it pays to have Ninja connections." the second noble replied. "The Hyuuga boy is a certain win, and I'm gonna make a killing."

* * *

Genma sighed as he called for the fight to begin. The Uchiha boy had eagerly run into the arena with the laughter of the audience following him. In contrast to the Uchiha boy's entrance, the Hyuuga boy had oh so slowly plodded over, making it obvious that he was participating in this fight under protest. After what seemed like forever, when he was preparing to declare the Uchiha the winner out of sheer annoyance, the Hyuuga finally arrived, and he was just about ready to strangle the boy when he did.

After announcing the start of the fight, he got out of the way and made his way to a spot that had a perfect view of the entire arena floor and was close enough to intervene when necessary. Therefore, because he was much closer than the audience, he'd been the first one besides the Hyuuga boy to notice that little Sasuke's eyes had turned red with two black tomoe in each eye. It would appear that this match was going to be far more interesting than he had thought it would be.

When the toddler made a bunch of hand seals before blowing out a fireball that was rather massive considering who had just created it, all he could think was "Holy Shit!". Uchiha Itachi had nothing on his little brother. Apparently, Sasuke had activated his Sharingan at a very, very early age, considering the technique he'd just used, a technique that had been a signature move of the Uchiha clan and wasn't anywhere near as common amongst the Hyuuga.

The Hyuuga boy, having stood there like a total fucking moron since he seemed to be completely unable to believe that the fireball had existed until it had hit him, dropped to the ground and rolled to smother the flames. The Uchiha boy, who was barely standing and undoubtedly suffering from a mild case of Chakra Exhaustion, took this opportunity to run up to the older boy and kick him in the privates.

"That's for Hinata." The Uchiha boy said as he kicked the boy again before the still smouldering Hyuuga could bring his hands around to protect the rather vulnerable area.

While the Hyuuga boy clutched his privates in agony, the Uchiha boy made a very familiar set of handseals, and within seconds, the Hyuuga boy was on fire again thanks to a much weaker fireball that had knocked the Uchiha boy on his ass. Instead of falling unconscious like he expected him to, the Uchiha boy managed to crawl all the way over to the Hyuuga boy, stand up, and kick him in the balls again.

This was getting humiliating. He was going to be putting a stop to it before the Hyuuga clan's reputation was completely ruined if it wasn't already. People were undoubtedly wondering about Konoha's abilities already. With the downfall of the Uchiha, the Hyuuga clan had become Konoha's most powerful clan, and if people thought that they could be beaten by toddlers...

He hopped into the arena and grabbed the Uchiha boy who was going in for another kick, causing the child to kick the air above the Hyuuga boy.

"That's it. This fight is over. Winner, Uchiha Sasuke." he said as he gestured for the medics to take the Hyuuga boy away.

"Yeah," he said quickly, hoping to salvage the situation. "The Uchiha were that awesome, that's why it took one of their own to get rid of them."

* * *

"Naruto, be a good boy and give the Kazekage a hug." Sarutobi said smiling evilly from his place in the Kage box.

Orochimaru stiffened as the small child wrapped his tiny arms around his neck and did his best not to shudder as memories of Uzumaki Kushina that he'd thought he'd repressed resurfaced. His former sensei had to know it was him, and was just messing with him. That could be the only explanation for why the man was so intent on encouraging Naruto's behavior. As soon as he and his former sensei had sat down after the third phase of the Chunin Exams had been officially opened, that damnable Sarutobi had ordered the guard with the diaper bag to set Naruto in his lap.

When the toddler had tried to kiss him on the cheek, leaving crumbs from the snack he'd devoured earlier on his mask, he found himself flashing back to the time he'd made the mistake of complimenting Kushina's hairstyle and she'd dragged him into the bushes and...Why anyone could make the mistake of thinking that he had been taking advantage of her, he didn't know.

The original cue for the signal for the start of the invasion had been Sasuke's fight with Gaara. That particular bout which would be nowhere near as impressive as it should have been would be in the quarter-finals however, and he didn't think he could wait that long, especially considering how long this slow ass fight between the Suna girl and that Nara who seemed as lazy as his entire clan combined was taking.

That's it, screw the plan, he was giving the signal now!

Tossing the toddler who looked exactly like his mother despite the fact that he had his father's coloring on the ground, he chucked the smoke bomb, grabbed his former sensei, and made his way to the roof.

As he held his kunai to his former sensei's throat, he felt a tug on his robes. He looked down and found himself looking down into a pair of wide blue eyes.

"Hafta potty." the toddler who had apparently hitched a ride on his leg said.

Oh shit.

**Edited 8-31-12**


	12. The One He Shouldn't Have Summoned

Orochimaru found himself looking around for a way to quickly rid himself of Uzumaki Kushina's spawn. It was too late, the barrier was up on the outside, and the barrier was up on the inside corners. He would have tried to kill Naruto if he hadn't seen what had happened to the moron who had been dumb enough to activate Kushina's final defense back when she had been the Kyuubi Jinchuriki. Being boiled and flash-fried in Kyuubi Chakra was not something he wanted to experience. Had Naruto been full sized during the Chunin Exams, he would have had something that he used have used deal with the boy if necessary, a seal that would be useless in the situation he was currently in, as the target for said seal had grown much smaller and was being protected by a Hokage.

Maybe he'd get lucky, and the child would be killed in the battle between himself and Sarutobi-sensei. The fact that Sarutobi-sensei was going to be distracted with trying to protect the Uzumaki could be considered to be a bonus as well.

When he and Sarutobi-sensei parted in preparation of the coming battle, Sarutobi-sensei took Naruto with him.

"Stay close to me Naruto." Sarutobi-sensei said to the small child that was clinging to his left leg, looking slightly frightened.

The battle started with a few elementary moves from Sarutobi-sensei, throughout which the Uzumaki who was bringing back too many memories of traps that yanked him up into trees, and red heads flying out of the bushes to drag him into some other bushes that were nearby somehow managed to remain attached to Sarutobi-sensei's leg. Finally, when it looked that things were coming to a standstill, he decided to bring out his trump card. He was still uncertain whether or not he could beat Sarutobi-sensei in a straight up battle, even with him being somewhat distracted by the little limpet that was frankly distracting him too, and had thought it would be amusingly ironic for the man to be destroyed by his predecessors who would then go on to destroy the village they created and/or gave their lives protecting.

As he summoned the Hokages, Sarutobi-sensei realized what he had done and tried to stop the summoning. In the middle of a series of frantic handseals, he became distracted and looked down in concern.

"I peed." the little blond menace that was attached to Sarutobi's leg said.

With Sarutobi effectively distracted, the summoning went off without a hitch, and three coffins - each containing a dead Hokage - rose and opened. The Shodai, the Nidaime, and the Yondaime Hokages stepped from their coffins as soon as the lids fell away from them. As he gloated over Sarutobi-sensei's misery upon seeing his dead teachers and Jiraiya's dead student, the Yondaime started fishing around in his coat.

"Yes!" the Yondaime exclaimed as he pulled out some paper, a bottle of ink, and a brush. From there, it was a race against time between himself and the Yondaime who had been only slightly slowed by death. He had two hands, two kunai, and the difficult decision of which two Hokages to seal first. The Second and Fourth seemed like the logical choices since the Second had invented this jutsu, and the Fourth was a master of sealing, but if the First decided to act, he could find himself speared by a tree or something since the corpses had some of their Chakra available to them already at this point. There was also the fact that the mobile corpses were armed.

His slight hesitation unfortunately gave the Yondaime the time to complete a pair of seals which he then placed within his two predecessors before he could insert the tages that had his own seals attached. It seemed that he would be sealing the Fourth then. As he ran forward with the sealed kunai, the Yondaime vanished.

Damn Hiraishin. How the hell could he have forgotten about that?

* * *

Minato smiled as he drew up a certain seal that was a modified version of the seals he'd placed within the Shodai and Nidaime Hokages. He felt a little guilty about using the standard control seals on them, but he hadn't had time to see if the experiment he had thought up when he'd first seen the information on the Edo Tensei in the Forbidden Scroll shortly after he became Hokage would work. Instead of being forced to carry out that Orochimaru creep's will, they would be carrying out his. The person whose room he had found himself in when he'd jumped for a random mark groaned and shifted in bed. He'd ask what sort of lazy ass stayed in bed this late, but from the sound of it, the poor sucker had just returned home from a bad mission and actually needed the sleep.

Looking at the photographs on the shelf above the bed, and the mass of silver hair that was poking out of the bedcovers, he realized that the poor bastard who sounded like he was in a great deal of pain was most likely Kakashi who had apparently kept the kunai he'd given him. From the looks of it, Kakashi had gotten a team of his own, a team that included someone who could quite possibly be his son Naruto. The fact that Kakashi was taking missions that left him this bad off instead of training his team or whatever was ominous. The frame that held the photograph with Kakashi's team of Genin in it didn't have a black border, so it probably wasn't **that **bad.

As he put the final touches on a seal that would grant him something approaching full autonomy, Kakashi woke up.

"Minato Sensei..." Kakashi breathed upon spotting him.

"I'm so sorry!" Kakashi practically wailed half an instant later when he flew out of bed and knelt before him.

"What did you do?" he asked, half dreading the answer since the last time his student had apologized like that had been when Kakashi had completely demolished his house, and he'd been forced to move into Kushina's apartment until he'd been made Hokage and allowed to move into the official Hokage residence. While Kushina liked the idea of being married, she wasn't one to happily share living space with another person, and had begrudged him every inch of floor, table, closet, drawer, and desk space he had taken up. She probably would have begrudged him every inch of bed space as well if he hadn't mollified her with certain activities.

Finding the small shrine she had dedicated to Orochimaru shortly after he'd moved in and had been putting some of his clothes in the closet had been disturbing as well, but fortunately she had gotten over that little childish crush and moved on. He would be getting his revenge on the man for taking advantage of poor Kushina at every opportunity as soon as he could now that he wasn't a fellow Konoha shinobi. He couldn't count the number of times he'd heard that that man had taken advantage of Kushina's naive infatuation and had dragged her into the bushes. Fortunately, the man had been caught before he could cause the kind of damage that would make Kushina unmarriagable in the eyes of others every time he had done so.

"...and then he drank from the Fountain of Youth and turned into a two year-old." Kakashi continued, having apparently been telling him exactly what he'd done that he felt was worth apologizing for while he had been spacing out and plotting revenge against Orochimaru.

"Hang on, back up, start at the beginning, no wait, come to think of it, tell me later, I've got to go kick Orochimaru's ass." With that he left the tearful Kakashi, and made his way to the seal that he had dropped on the roof where Orochimaru and Sarutobi-san had been fighting before he'd left.

When he got back, it had been to find that the first two Hokages had started the party without him. The first Hokage had pinned Orochimaru to a tree and bound him for good measure, and the Second was beating the shit out of him while making snide comments to Sarutobi-san about the quality of his students. Sarutobi-san as in "You're the Hokage now, so please just call me Sarutobi rather than Hokage-sama since it'll be too confusing." was just standing there holding a small child at arm's length.

Upon spotting his return, Sarutobi-san walked up to him looking rather relieved.

"Seeing as you're Naruto's father, you can put a diaper on him, since young Iruka apparently forgot to do so." Sarutobi-san said, handing him a small blond toddler with whisker marks on his cheeks.

Wait? What? Wasn't his son old enough to be on a Genin team? He remembered seeing a picture of him in Kakashi's room. Kakashi who had been apologizing for...Kakashi would pay later. Right now, it was time to get his son a diaper using the Hokage method, namely delegation. With that in mind, he flashed to the mark which was apparently still in his old office.

"You, get my son a diaper, and have him dressed and ready to go in five minutes." he said as he tossed his beloved son to the first female he could find, which turned out to be the dried up old prune who used to be on Sarutobi-san's team when they were Genin.

"Hop to." he said when the woman and the rest of the trio that made up Sarutobi-san's Council of Advisors stood there gaping at him rather than complying.

The trio turned to look at each-other before racing to comply, either that, or to find someone else to delegate the task to since they were apparently the Council again and had a high enough ranking to do so. With that done, he headed back to deal with Orochimaru before the others finished the bastard off.

**Edited 8-31-12**


	13. An Army of One

It had been when he got back a second time and found all three of the other Hokage wailing on Orochimaru who had apparently refused to die that the Yondaime remembered hearing that there was an invasion going on. Finally looking around, he could see that the village was in trouble.

"Crap." he muttered as he mentally checked to see how many of his seals had survived through the years he'd been gone. "While a Civilian's work comes and goes with the sun, a Ninja's work is never done. Not even when you're dead."

"You guys, leave some for me when I get back, I've got an invasion to go and deal with." he yelled to the Hokages who were apparently playing a game that involved seeing exactly how many kunai they could stick into Orochimaru who was no longer even trying to fight back at this point.

With that, he left and went on a Toad summoning spree the likes of which Konoha hadn't seen since Jiraiya had gotten completely wasted shortly after coming back from his final training session at Mount Myoboku. The Giant three headed snake that had been tearing through Konoha like Godzilla did Tokyo suddenly found Gamabunta in its faces. The fact that Gamabunta's summoning had squashed a couple of apartment buildings and leveled a half a block of shops and houses in every direction was immaterial at this point, considering the trail of destruction leading to the village wall that the snake had left behind it.

"Weren't you dead?" Gamabunta asked his summoner, not seeming to be phased by the fact that he was less than two feet away from a giant snake, and considering the fact that snakes ate toads...

"Yeah, but I got better." he replied.

"Whatever." Gamabunta replied as he casually stabbed the snake to death before vanishing again, leaving the Yondaime to plummet several stories to the ground once more, as Gamabunta had a bad habit of vanishing before he could run down the massive Toad's back and reach the ground that way. Oh well, there was a seal half a block away.

After he made his way to the ground, he threw himself back into the fight. Right when it looked like the invasion was about to end, a giant sand colored Tanuki made an appearance in the middle of town.

"Great. Just great." the Yondaime groaned as he made his way to the monstrosity that was stomping on the financial district.

He wondered exactly how he was going to deal with this mess without ending up right back in the Shinigami's stomach with half the Kyuubi again, since he had the distinct feeling that there wouldn't be another summon happy moron to rescue him the next time. When he reached the monster that he vaguely realized must still be Suna's Biju considering the number of Sand ninja that were wandering about, he noticed something sticking out of its forehead. It would seem that the creature already had a host, a host that was either unconscious or in a coma.

Coming closer, he noticed that the Ichibi's host was a child who looked to be about the age Naruto should have been. Throwing caution to the wind, he hopped up on top of the Tanuki's head, deftly dodging its claws, and slapped the red haired brat who had dared invade his village awake.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he asked the boy.

"You'll die for this!" the half awake brat said. "Mother will have your blood!"

"That'll be kinda difficult considering the fact that I'm already dead, and so's the body I'm inhabiting." he replied as he landed a non-lethal blow on the child, hoping to distract the boy and force the sand construct to lose cohesion. He didn't like killing children or the mentally ill, and this kid was both, but if he had to he would.

He watched as the child shuddered as if from a headache, and started looking even more crazed if that was even possible. He recognized the symptoms, having seen them in Jinchuriki before, including his beloved Kushina on one memorable occasion when he had been forced to run for his life after forgetting their anniversary. This wasn't good. This most definitely was not approaching anywhere near good.

"Yondaime-sama!" a voice called up from below as he prepared to land a killing blow on the child for the sake of his village.

"What?" he called down wondering if he should be grateful for the distraction or not. He really hated killing children.

"The Uzumaki child has been changed, fed, and has had his bath." the voice called back up. "Are there any other orders regarding the child?"

He looked down in order to tell the person who had distracted him that he was a little busy right now, and that Naruto would have to wait until after the battle. What he saw when he spotted the Chunin he vaguely recognized as being a Genin last time he saw him, his blood ran cold. The stupid bastard had taken his son into battle with him.

"Take Naruto somewhere safe, and if there's so much as a scratch on him when this battle's over..." he replied.

"Naruto...?" said the red haired Jinchuriki who had the Kanji for Love carved into his forehead and colored in with something that could either be rust colored paint or blood.

"Gaara!" a small voice called up from down below in response.

The red haired boy moved forward through the sand that formed the demon who was only just being held at bay at the moment, and looked down.

"No." he said. "You're supposed to be safe. You're supposed to be away from here. Temari promised that someone would..."

The sand monster collapsed and Minato found himself sliding down towards the ground on his ass. Within moments, he found himself at the edge of a giant sand pile that surrounded the red haired kid who contained Shukaku.

"Gaara!" his innocent little Naruto shrieked happily as he raced up to the boy and hugged him. As he watched Naruto hug the now much saner looking Jinchuriki who was hugging him back, something hit him.

"Hmm." he said. "It seems that at least on some level, Naruto remembers his mother."

"Huh?" Gaara and the terminally stupid Chunin said rather eloquently.

"Kushina was a red-haired Jinchuriki as well." he replied.

At this statement, Gaara held Naruto at arms length and gave him an odd look before hugging him again when the toddler had started whining and reaching out for him. It seemed that the Jinchuriki situation was resolved for now, but he would be having a very thorough look at whatever seal the asstard who stuck Shukaku in the boy had used.

He wouldn't have stuck the Kyuubi in Naruto if he had another choice, since the Uzumaki were genetically predisposed to carry the trait that allowed them to safely contain the one Biju that had been considered uncontainable when the methods of sealing Jinchuriki were first being developed, and the Kyuubi would have just reformed somewhere if Kushina had taken it back when she died. Besides Kushina who was already dying, Naruto was the only Uzumaki within 50 miles of Konoha at the time. He would have much rather had Naruto be given the option to opt out of the situation if he so chose, but there had been no time. Unlike Naruto, Kushina had been given the choice to opt out, as well as the Kyuubi's initial jailor, Senju Mito.

"I'm sorry you're going to have to see this Naruto." he said as he turned to the terminally stupid Chunin he remembered as being an overly arrogant Genin. "But the stupid stupid man who brought you into the middle of a battle isn't going to be a man for very much longer."

The man whimpered, turned, and ran. He wasn't quick enough however...

"Yondaime-sama, what are you doing?" asked a brown haired Chunin with a scar across his nose whom he didn't recognize who was holding Naruto when he had returned with his quarry a few minutes later.

"This stupid bastard brought Naruto into battle with him, and I'm teaching him a lesson." He replied as he found yet another use for the brass knuckles Kushina had given him for his last birthday.

"Oh really?" the Chunin said as a dangerous expression crossed his face.

And so the Invasion of Konoha ended with every last Konoha ninja running for the hills leaving behind a bunch of highly confused Suna and Oto nin after a ninja had run through the village screaming "Run for your lives! Someone was stupid enough to bring Naruto into battle and the Yondaime and Iruka have teamed up to deal with those they think might be responsible!"

**Edited 8-31-12**


	14. Kidnapped!

The invasion was over, Suna and Oto had gone into full retreat, and the four Hokages now stood on the roof of the arena overlooking the damage that had been done to Konoha. Orochimaru was finally dead after having been stabbed, speared, beaten, drowned, crushed, burned, bludgeoned, beaten again - this time by Iruka - and rather painfully turned inside out by a particularly nasty seal compliments of the Yondaime.

"So, Hashirama-sensei, Tobirama-sensei, how would you two like to..." the Sandaime started.

"Er, we need to get back to the Afterlife right about now." Senju Hashirama said, cutting him off as he backed away from his former student.

"Yeah, it would be bad if our continued presence destroyed the natural order. Very bad." Senju Tobirama said, looking slightly shifty. "The Natural Order is a very delicate thing you know."

"We'll...we'll just be going now. I hope to see you again soon Sarutobi, but not too soon, you know, considering..." Tobirama continued after he drew a very complicated looking seal on the ground and he and his brother stepped into it.

"Well, bye everyone." Hashirama said, waving good-bye as he and his brother vanished in a bright flash of light.

"Minato, weren't you...?" the Sandaime asked, obviously wondering why the Yondaime hadn't stepped into the seal with the first two Hokages.

"Nah, I figured that I'd stay and look after Naruto for a while." the Yondaime replied.

The Sandaime smiled at this, and picked up a rather battered hat from the roof tiles and held it out to the Yondaime.

"Sorry Sarutobi-san, but I can't. The rules clearly state that the Hokage has to be a living person. I think that law was made in order to prevent the Hokage from escaping his paperwork by naming a prior Hokage "Hokage For All Eternity", and since I'm still technically dead..." the Yondame said as he held up his hand and rather regretfully refused the hat. "I'll happily advise any successor you choose however."

It was at that point that a rather out of breath Jiraiya appeared, having arrived to the invasion in a manner that would be timely for say Kakashi or Obito.

"I'm sorry Sensei, I came as fast as I could, but..." Jiraiya said.

Jiraiya, Jiraiya, his ever loyal student who had never once betrayed the village...

"Oh hell no!" Jiraiya yelled before turning and running when the Sandaime held the Hokage hat out to him.

_Who am I going to pick now? _Sarutobi Hiruzen wondered as he held the hat, not wanting to reclaim it, but also not wanting to hand it over to Danzo either. _It has to be someone who is both feared and well liked, and is willing to sit for hours doing paperwork..._

"Congratulations Godaime!" the Sandaime said as he jammed the hat down on Umino Iruka's head before the young man could object.

* * *

Sasuke sat in the garden outside Hyuuga Hiashi's home playing with a small wheeled toy. People had looked at him suspiciously for the last couple of days since the invasion, but he'd managed to allay their suspicions somewhat by acting the way he'd seen Naruto and Sakura act. When Hiashi who had been amongst the ranks of those who had been suspicious of him had hinted that he was going to take him into his office for a discussion, he did the only thing he could think of at the time which was to latch onto Hinata who also happened to be in the room. Every time someone tried to pry him away from Hinata, he would shriek "Mine! Mine! Mine!" the way Naruto had in the Forest of Death. He didn't have claws or fangs, but he did have a good set of teeth and nails for a two year-old.

There was no way in hell anybody would be experimenting on him, and that would happen if anyone were to discover that he had memories beyond his two years.

Suddenly, as he was rolling the wheeled toy towards the rubber ball Hinata had given him, he heard the tinkling of a bell and the fwoosh of fabric moving in the wind. When he looked up to find the source of the noise, it was only to see a red and black shadow descending upon him. As he struggled to get away from his kidnapper, a chillingly familiar voice said "Go to sleep Sasuke. Your big brother is here, and he won't let anything happen to you.". Against his will, he found his eyes drooping as he started to fall asleep.

When he awoke, it was dark and he found himself in the middle of a makeshift camp of some sort, laid down next to the bastard who had killed his clan. Across the fire from That Man was a massive blue skinned man who had gills on his face who was holding a small bundle and humming softly.

"So how did you manage to get him?" That Man asked. "The Godaime Hokage is notorious for being overprotective of the boy. Rumor has it that he beat the shit out of the Sandaime and Yondaime behind closed doors the day he got the hat for putting Naruto in danger."

"You're not going to believe this but, a one-eyed cripple handed him to me and demanded I change his diaper." The blue man who was sitting next to a giant sword replied.

* * *

"This is all your fault!" The Godaime Hokage roared as he charged at his predecessor and soon to be former advisor as soon as he found a way to permanently discorporate the man's body. "I let you look after Naruto because you were his father, and you seemed to want the responsibility but, the second I turn around I find that you've handed him off to Danzo of all people!"

"I'm sorry." the Yondaime whimpered as he ran around the room trying to avoid the other man's wrath. Despite being dead, being injured still hurt like hell, and he didn't want to go through surviving having his head ripped off again. It was no surprise that Umino Iruka had been made Hokage, the man could be amazingly skilled when he wanted to be.

Naruto had had a particularly nasty accident in his diaper earlier that day, and he had thought it would be funny to delegate "Diaper Duty" to his fellow and soon to be former fellow Council member Shimura Danzo whom he'd never particularly cared for. There had been consequences to his little joke however, as Naruto was now nowhere to be found as the boy had been kidnapped from Danzo who had apparently stepped away for a minute to answer a call of nature. He had placed a tracking seal on Naruto's backside a couple days earlier, the instant things had settled down enough for him to be able to do so, but it seemed that little Itachi who was now a wanted criminal had gained a proficiency in seals, and had managed to suppress it. He should never have encouraged that little brat to study.

Little Kakashi was out with a veritable army of Hunter Nin trying to track Naruto down the old-fashioned way at this very instant, but that was not enough to calm the Godaime's rage which grew worse with every minute that passed without Naruto's return or at the very least information on his whereabouts.

"I should have known that you'd be the worst person to look after Naruto considering what you did to him the day he was born!" The Godaime Hokage Umino Iruka yelled after the Yondaime who had finally had the presence of mind to flee using the Hiraishin.

"Poor Naruto," the Godaime wailed. "Being kidnapped by S-Class missing Nin. He must be completely traumatized."

* * *

Naruto yawned and blinked sleepily at the big blue man who was holding him. He liked the blue man. He had given him Dango earlier, and had let him ride on his shoulders the way the yellow haired man whose name was "Dada" had yesterday, and had rocked him to sleep the way Daddy Iruka did. As he looked up at him, the big blue man grinned down at him showing off a bunch of neat looking pointy teeth. He blinked once more, curled up closer to the man, and went back to sleep.

&!&!&!&

**Edited 8-31-12**


	15. Lunch with the Akatsuki

They were supposed to have headed back to the cave with the statue for the extraction process post haste, but Kisame was setting a rather slow pace this morning, and looking rather introspective for some strange reason. Itachi, puzzled by this uncharacteristic behavior from his partner, questioned him about why this was.

"I'm not sure I can do it, even though I promised Madara-sama." Kisame finally replied after a little bit of prodding.

"Can't do what?" he asked.

"Take him to be killed." Kisame replied.

"Why not?" he asked.

"It's a defenseless little kid! Killing enemy Genin is one thing, since they signed up for it and were trained to kill, but this is something else entirely. There was one sort of mission I always passed on before I left, and this is rapidly becoming it." Kisame answered as he held Naruto out in a way that left Itachi looking into the pair of impossibly wide and watery blue eyes that belonged to a crying toddler who had woken up unhappy to discover that "Daddy Iruka" wasn't there.

He found that he didn't want to do it either. He had gotten more than his fill of such things during the massacre. There were several classes of Missing Nin in the world, just as there were several different classes of criminal. Those who took joy in harming small civilian children were...looked down upon. Had the Jinchuriki been older, and able to defend himself, he might have been able, if only because being obvious about not doing so could get Sasuke killed, but now...

"Itachi." The Kisame said after a while as they both continued down the road in silence, lost in their thoughts about the task that had been assigned to them.

"Yes Kisame?" he asked.

"I think there's something seriously wrong with that kid." Kisame said, pointing to Sasuke who had struggled when Itachi had tried to set him in the makeshift sling he had created before they set out that morning, and had been forced to undergo another sleep jutsu.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Last night, he tried to murder you in your sleep five times." Kisame replied.

"Hn." he said, giving his stock response for when he couldn't come up with a reply. Sasuke hadn't been nearly so violent when he was this age the last time around, though there had been that incident with the kunai...

He winced and rubbed the scar on his hand from the time that he had tried to stop Sasuke from eating the entire tomato plant since the plants themselves were poisonous, and discovered that his little brother had somehow gotten into his weapons pouch before he was set outside to play. He'd rapidly learned to never get between Sasuke and tomatoes. While tomatoes by themselves weren't Sasuke's favorite food, they were a close second, and an ingredient in his favorite food. He'd also learned to better secure his weapons pouch after that little incident.

"Maybe it's because I forgot to feed him." he finally replied after coming up with a reasonable explanation for why his now two year old brother would want to "kill" him. He would have start securing his weapons pouch again, and teach his little brother that kunai weren't to be used to wake people up.

"Sasuke tends to get very cranky when he's hungry." he said as he shifted his small burden to a more comfortable position, since his little brother's foot had escaped the sling and was now pressing into a rather uncomfortable spot. "We'll have to stop and get him some food."

"Good idea." Kisame said as he turned towards the road, and the town that lay along that path.

* * *

Sasuke awoke to find himself strapped in a restaurant booster seat. Set in front of him were all of his favorite foods. This had to be a trap somehow, as sitting next to him was That Man. But, Onigiri, and an entire bowl full of cherry tomatoes...

He moved to take one of the tomatoes before Naruto who was in a booster seat next to him could grab any despite the fact that the kid had an entire super-sized bowl of ramen sitting in front of him. That Man stiffened next to him. He reluctantly put the tantalizing tomato that his fingers had closed around back.

"Itachi! Kisame! Hi!" a bright cheerful voice said as a man in an orange mask who was wearing a cloak identical to the ones worn by That Man and his companions made his way to the table.

"Oh crap." Kisame moaned. "It's Tobi."

"What have you got there Itachi?" the masked man asked.

"My brother had an accident with the Fountain of Youth, and I thought it would be safer for him if I kept him with me." That Man replied.

"Tobi had an accident with the fountain once." the masked man said. "A strange lady followed him around for a long time afterwards saying that she was Tobi's wife and that they had spent many happy years settled down and raising rabbits. Tobi wasn't so sure though, Tobi is allergic to rabbits. The two kids that followed her around did have Tobi's eyes however..."

"Can Tobi please leave so Itachi and I can eat our lunches?" the blue man asked, his hand moving towards the sword that was leaned against the table next to him.

"Okay." the masked man said, sounding slightly disappointed as he trudged away.

As he was trying to figure out what the hell just happened, That Man grabbed one of the cherry tomatoes out of his bowl with his chopsticks. When he opened his mouth to protest the latest crime committed by That Man, he popped the tomato into his open mouth. Surprised, he nearly choked on it. After that, Lunch continued with him feeding himself after That Man tried to feed him two more times. It ended however with a somewhat spectacular row when Naruto had tried to steal one of his onigiri. Apparently, the fact that he could just barely use chopsticks hadn't slowed Naruto down one iota, and he had finished his bowl of ramen in near record time and had gone searching for something else to eat since he was somehow still hungry despite eating a bowl of ramen that was almost as big as he was. Afterward, That Man carried him off to clean him up. When they exited the restaurant, the masked man who had apparently been waiting for them approached.

"You are aware that unlike normal "victims" of the Fountain of Youth, Sasuke has all of his memories, right?" the masked man said in a voice that didn't sound anything like that of the cheerful idiot that had disturbed them in the restaurant.

Something about the masked man's tone of voice put him on guard for a reason he couldn't name. Probably because That Man had gone on guard the instant he'd realized that the masked man was there.

"What?" That Man asked.

The masked man pulled off his mask, revealing a face that Sasuke recognized from photographs that had been taken around the time Konoha was founded. A face that was impossibly young, considering the fact that that man had been born nearly a century before.

"It was the perfect escape route." Uchiha Madara said. "The wife was a shrew, the kids were a waste of oxygen, and like I said before, I'm allergic to rabbits."

**Edited 8-31-12**


	16. Forests and Fountains

Minato wasn't smiling. He should have been because his son had been found but...

The Hunter-nin had found and tagged Naruto and his kidnappers without a hitch. After he'd confirmed that Naruto had been tagged, the Godaime Hokage had insisted he be brought along to retrieve Naruto when the search started, and that was the reason for his discomfort. To bring someone or something along in the Hiraishin, he had to be holding it. While he wouldn't have minded holding say Kushina for instance, he really wasn't in the mood to wrap his arms around Umino Iruka who had done his level best to destroy him the night before, and all morning, and all afternoon...

Umino Iruka who was obviously uncomfortable with the arrangements as well made a face as he pulled him close. An instant later, he and the new Godaime Hokage were standing atop one of his special kunai on a path that ran through a section of forest that was close to River Country.

Standing further down the road, prepared to face off with Kakashi and the team of Hunter-nin that surrounded him, was a blue sharklike man wielding a rather over-sized sword. Behind the large blue man, holding both Naruto and a dark haired child he assumed was Uchiha Sasuke who had also been kidnapped, was someone he assumed was Uchiha Itachi. The small boy whom he'd thought was the spitting image of his mother had grown up to look like a cross between both of his parents complete with the stress lines that had taken nearly thirty years to form on Uchiha Fugaku's face.

Behind Uchiha Itachi was...

"Madara!" he yelled as he ran for the masked bastard who had taken Kushina away from him and had taken him away from Naruto the day his son was born.

"Tobi's gotta go, bye!" Madara said as he turned and ran down the road.

He didn't bother to stop to think before he ran after him. He'd beaten Madara once before, he'd do it again, and this time he'd kill the bastard.

* * *

Itachi looked at the forces amassed against him and Kisame forces that included the new Godaime who was said to be extremely overprotective when it came to one Uzumaki Naruto. These weren't good odds. While he could defeat Hatake Kakashi and the Hunter-nin any day of the week, he'd heard the rumors about the new Godaime's powers, which were an unknown variable in this fight. A month earlier, Umino Iruka had torn through Konoha's top ninja as if they were tissue paper. On top of what was in front of him, arrayed against him and Kisame, the resurrected Yondaime would eventually be returning. Madara said things when he was drunk that he wouldn't otherwise reveal, and one evening while he was completely smashed, Madara had regaled him with the tale of how the Yondaime had handed him his ass.

Not good odds at all, especially considering the fact that he did not want to kill any of the Konoha shinobi involved since part of him still regarded them as comrades.

As he was trying to figure out what he should do, the solution to all of his problems appeared in the corner of his eye. As Madara had said, it was the perfect escape, the one nobody would suspect. Dropping Sasuke and Naruto, he ran for the Fountain of Youth for all he was worth. A minute later, his head was spinning and he had a new five year-old body.

Success.

* * *

Naruto didn't know what was going on. One minute he was napping in the big blue fish's arms, and the next, there was a bunch of people in masks and the other person was holding him and the other boy who'd made him go into that scary forest. Daddy Iruka showed up out of nowhere, and so did Dada. Dada then ran after the strange Tobi man, and the other person had set him and the other boy down and run away.

Right now, Daddy Iruka was hitting the big blue fish, and it looked like it hurt. Why was Daddy Iruka hurting the blue fish? The blue fish was nice.

He was going to stop this.

He walked up to Daddy Iruka and hit him on the leg.

"Don't hurt nice fish!" he yelled.

* * *

"Fish?" Kisame said for the third time.

He wondered how the hell he was going to live this one down. He had been getting his ass handed to him by the Godaime Hokage who'd been a Chunin less than a week earlier, and had been rescued by a toddler, a toddler that thought he was a fish.

"Nice fish." said toddler said as he latched onto his leg, looking up at the Hokage with wide watery blue eyes.

The Godaime Hokage didn't look too happy at this. The man however refrained from attacking again though.

"You do realize that you will have to be punished for kidnapping Naruto." the Godaime Hokage said with a slightly evil gleam in his eyes that frankly scared the crap out of him.

"Kidnapping?" he said, deciding that if he was sinking in shit creek without a paddle or backup since Itachi had decided to save his own skin, he may as well bring someone down with him. "Some one-eyed cripple gave him to me. Told me I could keep him and walked off."

"Danzo!" the Hokage snarled, his ire successfully turned towards another target.

He was damn glad that the look on the Hokage's face wasn't directed at him. He didn't want to be in that Danzo person's position, since it was clear that he'd be in a world of hurt the instant the Hokage got his hands on him.

Suddenly, the Yellow Flash appeared out of nowhere.

"I'm back." the Yondaime Hokage said. "What did I miss?"

It was at that point that one of the Hunter-nin showed up with a very small Uchiha Itachi riding him piggy back.

* * *

Madara lay on the ground groaning as his body reassembled itself, thanking the gods that the unexpected side-efffects of that one experiment had been beneficial rather than detrimental. Once again the Yondaime Hokage had handed him his ass, and once again he'd barely escaped with his life. He hadn't had so bad a beating since that little fight with Senju Hashirama which, as far as he was concerned, he won despite the fact that the man had handed him his ass.

"I really, really hate that guy." he groaned as his right arm reassembled.

**Edited 8-31-12**


	17. Back at the Ranch er, Hyuuga Compound

Neji had slept peacefully for the first time in long while the night after the little Uchiha brat had been kidnapped. The main reason that he'd given such a poor showing at the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams had been because every night since the Second Phase of the Exams had been completed the little Uchiha brat would sneak into his room in the dead of night and stand there staring at him. Something about that had been so incredibly creepy that it set his instincts to screaming at him to remain alert, and he'd been unable to fall asleep every time the brat did so. He'd ended up becoming seriously sleep deprived as a result.

He couldn't accuse the little brat of trying to sabotage him during the Exams, because the kid was two years old and didn't understand the concept of sabotage.

All day long, he had been looking forward to another night of uninterrupted sleep. That was not to be however, as he learned shortly after the commotion that had taken place at the compound gate around dinnertime.

The brat was back, and he had brought company with him.

* * *

Despite the fact that he was back home with Daddy Iruka, Naruto was sad. The nice fish who gave him ramen had to go away. Daddy Iruka had said it was because the fish had been bad. How had the nice fish been bad? The nice fish had sang him to sleep like Daddy Iruka sometimes did, and gave him ramen. The nice fish was good.

When Daddy Iruka came to read him a story, he pouted and turned away. Maybe if he pouted long enough, Daddy Iruka would bring the nice fish back.

* * *

Itachi spent half the night contemplating his day. It had been quite an eventful one, and if Madara hadn't given him a way out, there was a good chance that he would be dead right about now. The hardest part of his day had been successfully convincing several experienced shinobi, most of whom had known him prior to the massacre, that he was mentally five years old as well as physically. The fact that all non-Uchiha users of the Fountain of Youth had lost their memories beyond the age they were at after being de-aged had worked in his favor. Fortunately, he hadn't been forced to attempt the near impossible task of dulling the intelligence behind his eyes, because he'd always been brilliant and there had always been something there, even when he had really been five years old.

Pretending not to recognize a two-year old Sasuke had been tricky as he had to carefully curb every protective impulse that tended to show in his body language when he was around his younger brother until the Yondaime who had "still been Hokage this morning" had explained that Sasuke was Sasuke several times. It was then that he finally hugged his baby brother who had tried his damn hardest to get away from him.

After his command performance, he had been carried back to Konoha in the arms of one of his former subordinates. Once in Konoha, he had been led to the Hyuuga Clan Compound where Hyuugi Hiashi had only agreed to take him in after a very long and loud argument during which several concessions had been made on the Hokage's part. After the negotiations had been successfully concluded, he had been brought into the compound, fed, dressed for bed, and assigned this room along with Sasuke. As he settled in for the night, he could feel three people watching him, and that didn't include the protection detail that the Hokage was supposed to dispatch to keep an eye on him while he was in the compound.

Sasuke could obviously feel that they were being watched too, as he had held his tongue. The murderous look in his little brother's eyes however said it all. There were times like now that he regretted doing his level best to make sure his precious brother hated him so that he would have the drive to defeat Madara or at the very least to become able to defend himself from Madara when the time came. His dear precious little brother was gone, and this hate filled child that he had created on the night of the massacre had been left in his place.

During the wee hours of the morning, as he was about to drift off, he heard the patter of small feet and the sliding of a shoji. That sound brought back memories. He had lost count of the number of times he'd had to retrieve Sasuke from the various places he'd run off to in the night when he was just a little older than the age he appeared to be. On one memorable occasion, he'd been forced to break up a 3 a.m. fistfight between his little brother and the Uzumaki boy who had been allowed to run wild through the village when the two of them were nearly four.

Keeping to his role of big brother for the benefit of his watchers, he got out of bed and went after Sasuke. When he found the boy, he was standing in the room of a teen-age member of the Hyuuga Branch House with his Sharingan activated. Rather than attacking the boy as he looked and felt to be about to do, Sasuke just stood there and stared at him, releasing small, barely noticeable, amounts of Killing Intent.

"What are you doing Sasuke?" he asked.

"He hurt Hinata!" Sasuke replied in an exceedingly childish tone of voice that belied his true years.

Oooookay then. While it was cute that Sasuke wanted to avenge his girlfriend, what his little brother was doing when he interrupted him was exceedingly disturbing, bordering on "Call the Yamanaka for a psych eval" disturbing. He should know, he'd been informed on many occasions that he'd cornered the market on disturbing, and that had been back before the Massacre.

"Let's get back to bed Sasuke. We don't want anyone coming in here and asking what we're doing." he said as he grabbed his brother's arm and yanked him away.

Sasuke continued to glare at the Hyuuga boy as he dragged him out of the room and back towards their own, barely protesting over being manhandled by him.

* * *

Uchiha Madara groaned when he was finally able to stand. He still hurt everywhere. Once he was on his feet, he took an experimental step. He was able to walk...just barely. He started staggering down the road, hoping to get the hell out of the area before someone from Konoha remembered that Namikaze had left him laying incapacitated somewhere. He would have to thank Itachi for that distraction. If Itachi hadn't de-aged himself, chances were that he wouldn't have been completely forgotten about like he had been.

After several minutes of walking, he tripped over a rock he hadn't seen in the dark, fell into a small pond, and bashed his head against another rock. When he came to, he was coughing what felt like gallons of water out of his lungs. When he was finally able to breathe properly, he noticed that something felt different, something felt..off.

He looked down at his hands.

They were tiny.

He looked down at his reflection in the pond which was little more than a sillouette due to the fact that it was only a half moon that night.

He couldn't have been older than seven.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck!" he screamed into the night.

**Edited 8-31-12**


	18. Tobi and Tobi

Uchiha Madara growled as he made his way across the countryside on tiny legs that made the trip take far longer than it should have. Thanks to this latest mishap, it was time for a certain lazy bastard that he'd been keeping around just in case something like this happened to start earning his keep. Just as he expected, the man from whom his Tobi routine had been inspired was taking a nap on his head.

Well, not his head actually, but the head of the statue that had been made of him at the Valley of the End. The man who also went by his alias of Tobi for the sake of convenience amongst other things, such as the fact that everyone thought he was dead just couldn't stay off the damn thing for some strange reason. It was almost as if he thought it was a jungle gym or something. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd found the man drinking tea or eating his lunch there. He'd told the guy that if he was going to be scattering crumbs, he should go and do it on that damn Senju's statue, but so far, he hadn't listened to him.

If he didn't know any better, he'd swear that this had been a result of the brain damage the man had suffered during the accident that had led to him recruiting him. Unfortunately, it appeared that Uchiha Obito had been born that way, considering the fact that the behavior had been present long before the amnesia if even half of the stories he'd heard about the black sheep of the Uchiha Clan were true.

"Hiya Madara!" The other Tobi called down from where he was lounging between a pair of rather prominent hair spikes the moment he'd sensed he was in the area.

"Tobi! Get off your lazy ass, I've got a job for you!" he called back up to the idiot that he sometimes very seriously regretted saving.

"What happened to you?" Tobi asked when he'd jumped down off the statue, and finally actually caught sight of him.

"None of your business, now go to Ame and get to work!" he snapped.

* * *

Sasuke growled as one of the Hyuuga confiscated his kunai. That had been the twenty-seventh time that had happened this week, and if he had his way, twenty-eight wouldn't happen until after That Man who was currently also pint-sized was dead. That Man, who had been completely unfazed by the assassination attempts was sitting on the porch quietly drinking tea as he read one of the books from the library which he himself had yet to find a way into.

That Man had been moved to another room when he'd been caught trying to murder him in his sleep, removing that opportunity completely, as there was now a guard posted outside his door at night, which also kept him from getting his revenge on Neji for hurting Hinata.

Aside from the clan members who had constantly confiscated his kunai, Hinata was just about the only Hyuuga that had anything do do with him these days. According to the whispers that were wending around the Hyuuga clan compound, the Hyuuga seemed to believe that he was possessed by something, and over the last few days, he had seen several Hyuuga making signs that were meant to ward off evil as he passed. The thing that really stung though was that they weren't doing the same to That Man, That Man who spent most of the time he wasn't training with the Hyuuga children in his age group reading books that were far too advanced for the five year-old he was pretending to be.

"...Think it jumped to him that night..." one of the Hyuuga quietly whispered to his friend as he walked by. "...n't heard anything about Itachi massacring any families since then..."

* * *

Neji warily skirted around the demon-possessed Uchiha child. He'd been receiving a great deal more sympathy lately now that the clan was actually starting to believe him about the boy. He had also been getting a great deal more sleep since they had started posting a guard outside the boy's room. Sleep he'd dearly needed, considering the fact that Lee had started consistently beating him in their training spars.

Hinata was the only member of the clan who wasn't convinced that what Uchiha Sasuke needed was an exorcism, but then again that was probably because the weakling tried to see the good in everybody.

He wasn't too certain about Uchiha Itachi who was rapidly becoming popular in the clan due to his genius and good manners either. There was something off about the boy, something he couldn't quite put his finger on about the child who spent most of his time quietly reading books that were far above his age level. The fact that he had slaughtered his entire clan before he had been de-aged was probably part of it. About the only one who listened to him about Itachi though, was his uncle, but then again he had to be paranoid about nearly everything, since he was responsible for the entire clan.

He didn't want either boy in the compound, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Fate really hated him.

* * *

In a cell in the Konoha T&I division, Hoshigake Kisame sat contemplating his options. He had been given an ultimatum, either become Uzumaki Naruto's babysitter/bodyguard or be executed. On the one hand, if he became Naruto's babysitter he would not be allowed to leave Konoha, and he would have several seals placed on him that would insure he wouldn't be able to do anything against the child or the village if he so wished. On the other however, if he died, there would be no chance of him helping Madara-sama create the world without lies that they both envisioned.

The decision was a hard one, but fortunately he'd been given time to make it.

In the next cell over from Kisame, a battered and bruised Danzo sat cursing his fate while his ROOT was being disbanded...

* * *

"Is it just me, or is Madara trying too hard?" Konan asked Nagato who was currently using Yahiko's body to focus on the scene below the tower where Madara, who had just returned to Ame in order to check in and provide them with more orders, was standing in an alley kicking a stray puppy.

"No, it isn't just you. I think he sent the other Tobi again." Nagato replied as "Madara" dashed off to do only the gods knew what.

"You know, I really hate it when he..."

CRASH! "SORRY!"

"Does that." Konan said. "Every time the other Tobi shows up, there's nothing but..."

SCREEE! CRASH! "WATCH WHERE THE FUCK YOU'RE GOING ASSHOLE!"

"Disaster after disaster until he..."

BOOM!

"Leaves."

Two minutes after the explosion, a still smoking Tobi jumped over the rail of the balcony where Konan and Yahiko's body had been sitting. After putting out the fire on his sleeve, the man stood at attention.

"Sorry I'm late!" Tobi said. "I stopped to er...destroy an old lady's groceries and throw a cat into a tree!"


	19. Many Unhappy Returns

Nagato, who was currently going by the name of Pain, felt like slamming his head(s) into the nearest wall, all seven of them. Normally, he wasn't anywhere near this masochistic despite his current name and the odd piercings in his bodies, but then again, it was always this way when Madara sent the other Tobi over to deliver orders because he couldn't be bothered for whatever reason. Fortunately, the other Tobi was willing to take orders from him as well as deliver them to him. So, if he gave Tobi some sort of task, the nuisance would leave rather than stay and wait for Madara to come back and order him around like he had done the first few times he was here before he'd learned the trick to getting rid of him.

Unfortunately, while the other Tobi was here though, dealing with him was a headache and a half, and Pain's day was shot to hell as he watched his village descend into chaos. Hence the desire to slam his head(s) into the wall if only to have some other pain to focus on in order to distract himself from the massive headache that had started forming the instant he realized that the other Tobi was in Amegakure.

The problems with the other Tobi had started when the accident-prone moron who'd obviously suffered some serious brain damage at some point had somehow become convinced that the Akatsuki was an evil organization, and that since he could nominally be considered to be a member, he had to be evil too in order to fit in. The problem with that was that every time the other Tobi tried to be evil, it ended in disaster. About the safest evil activity that the other Tobi could engage in was kicking puppies, and even that had a fifty-fifty chance of going straight to hell. Like during that one time when the damn puppy he'd been kicking had bit him and he'd knocked over that food stand in his frantic attempts to remove the animal.

Now that he thought about it, just about everything the other Tobi did ended in disaster. But, considering the fact that the other Tobi was a disaster magnet, that was to be expected. He'd checked at one point because he'd been half convinced that the other Tobi had been destroying everything around him for his own twisted amusement, only to discover that most of the destruction the other Tobi had caused had really and truly been done by accident.

Another reason for the headache that was rapidly growing worse as Tobi ran around Ame destroying things was Tobi's personality. With Madara-sama, the idiot routine was just an act that he could and did shut off at any time. With the other Tobi, well...That was actually him, and there was no shutting it off.

Sighing, he sent the Human Path over to the market district to fetch the other Tobi so he could give him orders that would get him the hell out of Amegakure before he completely trashed the place. He didn't expect Tobi to actually carry those orders out, but what he did expect was that Tobi would unintentionally trash someplace else while he rebuilt his poor abused ninja village once more. Knowing Hoshigaki Kisame's abilities and his reason for joining the Akatsuki, he knew that the swordsman could and would return at any time. Until then, the other Tobi could destroy Konoha to his heart's content. Let them shoulder the burden of rebuilding after the other Tobi has blown through for once. It's not like he cared, he hated Konoha and the bastard ninja who lived there.

&!&!&!&!&

As Kisame was signing his life away to the village of Konoha, knowing that one day he would be able to get free and help Madara-sama with his grand plans, the Godaime Hokage was pacing amongst the ranks of new shinobi that had been discovered when Danzo had been arrested for handing Naruto over to a potential enemy. He recognized one or two of the ROOT shinobi who ranged from being Academy aged children to being middle-aged as being former students who had bombed out of his class for no apparent reason. Before they'd vanished, they had been in the upper middle of a rather competitive pack, which was why their departures and the fact that he hadn't seen them again until now had so greatly surprised him.

Now that he knew where they had gone, and something of what had happened to them, he was beyond pissed. Children should not be made to do missions that even seasoned ANBU would balk at, and even if they didn't have clans or families to protect them, they shouldn't be used as a disposable commodity either.

Virtually all of the blank-eyed and emotionless children and adults that surrounded him were orphans. Orphans who had been made by the wars, orphans that had been made by the Kyuubi attack amongst other things, orphans who had vanished from the public eye and been subsumed into the ranks of Danzo's private forces without anyone noticing or being the wiser. Had he not called so much attention to himself in those days after the Kyuubi attack, had he not caught the Hokage's eye and therefore the eye of the public, there was a good chance that he could have vanished into these ranks long ago.

The saddest thing of all was that when they were returned to Konoha proper and taught to be human again, they would all be alone.

Danzo would be suffering for this. In fact, when he got back to his office, he would be signing the order to have Danzo skinned alive. Then, he would be freeing up the rest of the day and cancelling any number of non-essential appointments so he could carry out his own orders.

&!&!&!&!&

Tobi frowned as he raced towards Konoha so he could rescue Kisame. He didn't know why, but every time he got near Konoha, he got a headache. That was why he did his best to avoid the place if he could. He didn't know much about his life before the Akatsuki, but he figured that Konoha had been involved in it somewhere. Try as he might though, he couldn't figure out how since his earliest memory was of a cave with a big statue, and tripping and falling, and landing headfirst on a rock.

Whatever the hell happened before then must have been very bad since half of his body looked like it had been replaced by one of those Zetsu tree people.

Sighing as he approached the gates, he popped a couple of aspirin despite the fact that he knew it would be absolutely useless and adjusted his scarf. The rather bored looking silver haired gate guard who was reading an orange book as he waved people through looked familiar to him for some strange reason. He couldn't be bothered to figure out how or why as there was a pressure building behind his eyes, and making its way to being a full-blown headache.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to remove your mask." the silver haired guard said as he walked past the table without even bothering to sign in.

Sighing, since he knew the sort of reaction he usually got when he showed his face, he cast a mild Genjutsu that would blur his features a bit to anyone who wasn't trying to look directly at him over the area so as not to cause a disturbance amongst the local populace and popped the mask off.

Rather than looking at him in disgust like many people did when he removed his mask, the silver haired gate guard looked stunned for a moment, then elated, then something else. Before he knew it, the man was kneeling in front of him with his arms wrapped around his waist and crying into his shirt. About the only thing he could make out of what the stranger who wouldn't let go no matter how many times he tried to pry him off was saying was "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

_What is it with Kakashi's teammates coming back from the dead? _Maito Gai thought as he took in the scene in front of the Western Gate as he made another lap around the village. _At this rate, we should be expecting Rin back sometime next week._


	20. Home Sweet Home?

Naruto smiled happily as he ran outside onto the lawn where the surprise Daddy Iruka had for him was waiting. The blue fish was back! The blue fish was back!

"Up you go!" the big blue fish said with a sharp toothed grin as he picked him up and whirled him around.

"Whee." the big blue fish said as he tossed him high into the air, throwing him so he spun around on his way up and on his way down.

This was fun!

The big blue fish did it again and again.

It wasn't so fun anymore.

The big blue fish did it again.

His tummy felt funny.

The big blue fish did it again.

He threw up.

"ACK! He barfed on me!"

"They do that sometimes."

"Oh, hi Itachi. Thanks for leaving me in the lurch, not that you remember or anything..."

* * *

"I know it's really small, but you can stay here as long as you like." Kakashi said as he led Obito into his apartment.

After a check-up at the hospital which revealed that his teammate had amnesia, Obito's status had been legally changed from dead to alive. Such things were surprisingly easy in ninja villages, mostly because there had been identification errors and suchlike before, especially in times of war and other times of conflict where the bodies that were left behind could only barely be identified as human, much less have a name attached to them. There had been a few incidents where escaped prisoners of war had come home and discovered that their name was on the Memorial and that their spouses had remarried in their absence. Usually what it took to get their lives back was a once-over by a medic in which their blood was checked against the profile on file using an identity seal. If the person in question wanted to return to duty however, that's when things got more complicated and probationary periods and trips to the Yamanaka got involved.

Once Obito had been declared fit enough to leave the hospital, the matter of where he would go from there came up. There was no way in hell he'd be leaving Obito all alone in that empty Uchiha district, especially since his old home had gotten destroyed in the Kyuubi Attack. Minato-sensei had agreed, but he didn't have anywhere for Obito to stay, since he'd been hanging around the Hokage tower because his own home had been destroyed in the Kyuubi Attack as well. In the end, they'd decided that his apartment would be the best option even if it would be rather cramped for two people, considering the fact that it barely fit one, and occasionally some dogs who usually stayed outside.

"I'm afraid I won't be staying long mister," Obito said as soon as he moved aside to let the other man into the apartment. "I have orders to bring Kisame back to base. And besides, Konoha gives me a headache."

* * *

Sai looked around the apartment he would be sharing with Shin as soon as the other boy got out of the hospital. It wasn't the best, and it wasn't the worst either and the neighborhood seemed to range to just above the poverty line to lower middle-class. From the looks of things, the furniture that had come with the apartment to which he had been assigned had been at least second hand when its previous owner who'd been a bit rambunctious and semi-destructive had gotten their hands on it and subsequently left it behind, choosing to take only their personal effects with them when they had moved out.

Things would be rather lonely until Shin who'd been hiding an illness that had nearly reached the point where it would have been terminal returned from the hospital, but he would find a way to manage in his brother's absence. And, when his brother returned, they both could figure out a way to live in this strange new world that didn't have Danzo-sama in it. Danzo-sama who'd literally been skinned alive by the Hokage who'd objected to the fact that he'd been hiding village resources from him, and running what was apparently an illegal and unsanctioned Black-Ops program. A Black-Ops program of which he and Shin had been a part.

Crossing over to the kitchen table which was covered by a plain white cloth, he sat down for lack of something better to do. As he looked down, contemplating what he should be doing next since he wasn't particularly hungry, and he was running low on art supplies, he noticed that the tablecloth was dirty. Sighing, he pulled the cloth off the table in order to clean it. As soon as the cloth was clear of the table, he noticed that someone had carved something into the table. Setting the cloth aside, he went over to inspect the carving.

Carved into the wood of the table in rather sloppy hiragana was "Property of Uzumaki Naruto".

* * *

"You want to be what?!" Baki said, sure that he'd misheard Gaara.

"I want to be an Academy Instructor, then Kazekage. Godaime Kazekage if that is at all possible." Gaara stated flatly.

Apparently he'd heard correctly the first time.

He didn't know what Konoha had done to the boy, but he'd been acting strange ever since he'd arrived in that village to take and attack the Chunin Exams. He'd half expected Gaara to return to normal when he returned to more familiar surroundings, but that had apparently not been the case. Instead, he had found Gaara setting a strip of photo booth photos of him and that small blond toddler in a frame and setting it on his dresser, and now this...

"So, what brought this on?" he asked.

"While I was in Konoha, I was given time to think over my life and the direction in which it was headed, and the directions it could be headed in if I modified my behavior. After a great deal of thought I realized that I would like to emulate Umino Iruka." Gaara replied in that same flat tone he was rather familiar with, as it was the tone the boy usually used when "Mother" wasn't acting up.

Come to think of it, the Ichibi hadn't acted up even once since the failed invasion. He'd rather thought that the creature would have been screaming for the blood it had been denied or something, seeing as things had most definitely not gone to plan in that area. After Shukaku's sand form had collapsed in Konoha, there hadn't seemed to be a single peep out of the creature whom Gaara could only ignore for so long before he went all "Mother wants your blood!" and "Shut up or I'll kill you!" on everybody.

Come to think of it, he hadn't heard a single death threat out of the boy since Konoha either...

Taking his life into his own hands, he turned to question the boy.

"Gaara, are you feeling alright?" he asked.

"Never better." Gaara replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a nap."

"You're going to go take a WHAT?!"


End file.
